Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) talks about using down times to catch up on tasks. (C) 2011 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

” No one reaches peak performance without being stressed, whether an athlete, an office worker, or a manager.” — Robert Ostermann, American psychologist

“We need to reframe how we look at anxiety. It’s not something to run away from, but something that can be used as productive energy. Fear is the body’s way of preparing for action.” — Robert Rosen, Ph.D., author of Just Enough Anxiety: The Hidden Driver of Business Success

You may think you know what stress is…but do you really?

In the medical sense, stress is your body’s response to any kind of demand or constraint, good or bad. Put that way, it’s obvious that some stressors can be positive and adaptive; that is, they may help you stay healthy, provide a sense of good feeling, or both. Some researchers call such stressors “eustress .”

A good example of eustress is exercise. Though it stresses the body, it ultimately makes you healthier and generates good feelings because of that. Getting a promotion, riding a rollercoaster, having a good cry, or experiencing childbirth can all be forms of eustress.

Distress is any stress deriving from negative situations or implications. But think about it: even distress isn’t always a bad thing. For example: fear of failure, which is definitely a negative stressor, can drive you to study hard for your exams or put in the time necessary to make your next presentation a memorable one. Similarly, fear of being late for work can help you get moving on a slow morning.

In other words, stress and productivity aren’t necessarily enemies. Stress can and does drive productivity; indeed, to some extent stress is necessary for productivity. You’ll never achieve SuperCompetence in the workplace if you don’t think big and set solid deadlines, for example. Working to achieve these things is inevitably stressful. How can it be otherwise, when you’re stretching yourself beyond your old boundaries?

In this sense, stress is your friend. Unless you want to end up just another unremarkable Joe or Jane, you need to put the pressure on and shoulder those responsibilities that drive you toward success. The key is not to let the associated stress overwhelm you, and to disengage (at least for a while) when you see the signs that it’s beginning to.

The Yerkes-Dodson Law
Like it or not, stress is an intrinsic part of the work environment, and a critical element of achievement. Fortunately, it can be harnessed, if you keep in mind that productivity and stress share an inverted “U” shaped relationship. That is, as stress increases, so does productivity…to a certain point. If stress builds beyond that point, the level of productivity drops precipitously. This is known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law, after the psychologists who initially described it back in 1908. (They put it in terms of arousal vs. performance, but the same principle applies.)

So let stress drive you, but don’t let it drive you into the ground. If you can, save your worst stressors for those times of day when your energy level is highest, so you’ll be able to face them head on and face them down. If you ever reach the point where stress has you up against the wall and you can’t take anymore, then you must be willing to stop and take a step sideways.

This is true even if it seems that there’s no time to stop. If you don’t, you’re likely to skate up over the top of that Yerkes-Dodson curve and then down the other side, straight into incompetence and lack of productivity. Isn’t it better to push the reset button on your stress, so that your productivity can reset along with it?

So take at least a little time off and do something soothing, whatever that means to you. Some of us like to visit an art museum, or work in the garden, or cook, or watch mindless television; whatever it takes to recharge your batteries and blow off steam, as long as the recreation itself isn’t stressing. To the body (and to some extent, the mind), all stressors are the same, and they’re cumulative. Therefore, I’d recommend that you avoid drinking, playing violent video games, doing tough puzzles, or any other physical or mental stressor—even if those things are normally relaxing to you.

When you’ve ridden the stressmobile as far as it’ll take you productively, get out and slide back down that curve to the bottom. Enjoy life. Don’t think too hard. Go with the flow for a while…and then, when you’re ready to go back to the grind, you’ll be fresh and open and sparkling with optimism and new ideas.

No related posts.

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), shares tips on boosting your mood so you can get more done.

(C) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. www.TheProductivity Pro.com

No related posts.

How would you describe your morning routine? Perhaps you get to work, fetch your coffee, line up your snacks, figure out what you didn’t do yesterday, catch up with your coworkers, post your social media updates, and check your email. Now what time is it? Lunchtime! And your energy is fading fast.

So perhaps you got Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter updated, your favorite blogs read, and your email done…but you kept adding to your to-do list…and you didn’t accomplish much of anything significant.

I’m issuing a productivity challenge for tomorrow: I dare you to break your typical routine.

If you usually come in the morning and get a cup of coffee, I would challenge you to bring your coffee. If you usually open up your Outlook and check your messages, I would ask you not to do email first. If you usually get on Facebook and see how your peeps are, what they’re saying, and what they’re doing, then use that as a reward, perhaps at lunchtime—after you’ve accomplished that project you’ve wanted to do for so long but has been on the back burner due to “lack of time.”

Instead, bring a timer from home (preferably an egg timer that you can dial that makes noise when it goes off) and set it for two hours. Sit down, open up Microsoft Word (or an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint show) or any other application except Outlook or Internet Explorer.

Work on a task for two hours straight, literally. See how your day goes after that.

To find out more about The Productivity Pro®, Inc. or have Laura Stack speak at an upcoming meeting or event, please visit at www.theproductivitypro.com.
Make it a productive day! ™

© 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved.

No related posts.

This month’s article correlates to the third key in my newest book SuperCompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best (Wiley), to be released on August 16: ATTENTION. Simply put, attention is the ability to concentrate and not get distracted.

SuperCompetent workers are always tightly focused: on getting the job done, on their department’s success, on their company’s success, on the success of their own careers. They home in like a bloodhound on the task at hand, rather than flitting from one thing to another. Distractions are ignored or shunted aside. They avoid negative chat and whining and are proud of what they’ve accomplished at the end of the day.

SuperCompetent people don’t have nifty time-stretching devices like the one Hermione uses in the Harry Potter series to cram in extra courses at Hogwarts. Nope, they have the same number of hours and minutes we do, but they use them more efficiently. They know how to pay Attention to their work, and nothing else, when it’s necessary—so they can stop paying Attention when they need to devote time to other important parts of their lives.

When fine-tuning your ability to pay Attention, it’s especially important to avoid an overdependence on business technology. You must school yourself to ignore the Internet, except where it’s necessary to do your job. Don’t take a few minutes to check your eBay auctions or Facebook page when you should be working, and for heaven’s sake, don’t let your email rule your life.

Modern technology can be a phenomenal productivity tool, but it will eat your day alive if you let it. So don’t. Learn to turn off Outlook, block out those distractions any way you can, and get to work. You don’t have to be a social pariah, but don’t let your social interactions (online or in real life) take over your workday, either.

To achieve a SuperCompetent Attention level, you have to constantly work on these five factors (which also correspond to the chapters in my new book):

1. Stay focused consistently on your work. Don’t get distracted. No, do not open Outlook, and turn off all your email alerts. Sure, it may only take a few seconds to check your mail or go for a cup of coffee, but any interruption breaks your concentration, wasting valuable minutes as you refocus on your task.

2. Leave the distractions for your downtime. Most people lack the ability to refuse attractive distractions, and this costs Corporate America billions of dollars per year. When you’re supposed to be working, work. Wait for lunch or break time to check YouTube or your social media sites.

3. Limit your multi-tasking in order to maximize your productivity. Despite our technological achievements, it’s difficult for the human mind to focus on more than one thing consciously at a time. Rather than achieving more, you end up slowing down because your perceptual channels get jammed. Stop opening 17 browsers.

4. Don’t allow socializing to overwhelm your productivity. Human beings are social creatures, so of course you’ll need to interact with the people around you—but don’t let it get out of hand. This is especially a problem now that it’s so easy to go online and lose yourself in social media of all kinds.

5. Don’t let your productivity technology take over your life. Realize that your handheld, cell phone, laptop, and other forms of business technology are just tools to help you become more productive—end of story. You need to be able to turn all these things off at the end of the day; how else can you ever be off work?

It all boils down to time. Do you really have time to check your social media accounts constantly, especially if they have nothing to do with work? Of course not, but doing so is tempting, particularly when it takes you away from tasks that are boring or onerous. The fact that we can be constantly connected makes it even easier to lose track of what we’re doing and waste time enjoying ourselves with our shiny new technology and social interaction.

But let’s face it. There’s a time for work and a time for fun, and most of the time, you can’t do both effectively at the same time—and accomplish anything worthwhile. Focus, focus, focus. For the working professional, social media, handheld devices, email, and the like are tools. You need to learn to learn to use these tools for what they’re intended, instead of letting their expanded purposes of entertainment get out of hand in the workplace.

You shouldn’t let their utility trick you into trying to do too much at once, either. Just because it’s easy to communicate via email and social media and to get more work through your contacts, don’t get sucked into the multi-tasking trap. You’re only human; you can only do so much.

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2010 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

Around this time of year, everyone begins thinking about making resolutions and getting organized for greater productivity in the New Year. If I could pick a single goal for everyone, it would be revamping those time-sucking meetings!

(C) 2010 Laura Stack, www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

Are you working 60-80 hours a week? Would you like to learn how to be more productive at work, so you can achieve the same results in less time and Leave the Office Earlier®? This 20 part seminar is Laura’s productivity class that combines key concepts from multiple seminar listings into a comprehensive program. The You Can Be a Productivity Pro® video series covers:

* Planning
* Prioritization
* Scheduling
* Multi-tasking
* Concentration
* Discipline
* Organization
* Time management systems

Topics cover all aspects of your personal productivity—from the start of your day until the end—to help you get Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. Professionals, managers, and administrative staff will gain scores of new ideas from The Productivity Pro® on increasing output without increasing effort and performing at your matchless best!

This great series is now available as a rental on YouTube! Visit www.YouTube.com/TheProductivityPro for more information.

No related posts.

Availability is driven by Activity.

Just as setting valid priorities and goals is important, so is accepting your responsibility in carrying them out. You have to structure your schedule very carefully to ensure that things get done—because if you don’t, other people will be perfectly happy to structure your schedule for you.

Think about it: how many times have you attended a meeting and asked yourself, “Why am I here?” Often, it’s because someone decided you should be—without bothering to consider if that was best for you and your productivity goals.

You have to be willing to protect your time from everyone who wants a piece of it. Among other things, you must learn to say no when appropriate, to delegate, to cancel unnecessary meetings, to let some tasks go, and to eliminate bottlenecks—whatever’s necessary to take back your time and use it the way you need to.

More importantly, you must learn how to leverage technological productivity tools that can lighten your scheduling load. Webinars, teleconferencing, and services like Jott or GoToMeeting can accelerate productivity and streamline your schedule. So can the effective use of organizers and other paper-based methods. The trick is finding which one works best for you, and that takes some experimentation.

Try these tips to hone your Availability toward SuperCompetence:

1. Refuse requests when appropriate. Learn how to say no graciously. Because you’re good at what you do, you’ll always be fielding requests for help and input. It’s human nature to want to please others, but you can’t do it all. There’s no need to be rude, but there are polite ways to avoid being overworked.

2. Set appropriate boundaries. Learn how to protect your time from others. You’re always going to face what I call the six D’s of Interruptions: Deadlines, Disruptions, Dependencies, Discrepancies, Distractions, and Drop-Ins. You can’t let others use any of these to slow down your productivity.

3. Push a task down to the lowest level of responsibility. Trust others to do their jobs; “delegation” is a popular business buzzword for a reason. Don’t waste your time and productivity on tasks other people can do more cheaply. Hand them off to someone else, and let them do their jobs without micromanagement.

4. Schedule your day realistically according to your key activities. While it’s normal to make an effort to accommodate other people’s needs, your own should come first. Learn to manage your time properly, and take control of your own schedule. Don’t let other people do it for you.

5. Weigh the results of attending any meeting against the results you could produce instead. Meetings can take up your entire day if you let them. Instead of dropping everything to attend a meeting, see if you can send a proxy, attend by phone, or just cancel it altogether.

Availability is a loaded word, at least in business terms. It means so much more than just being there—any decent worker can and should be there for their employers, subordinates, and co-workers when they’re needed. SuperCompetent people need to be keenly aware of time management. After all, time isn’t like money, office supplies, or Brussels sprouts: we’ve each got a very limited amount of it, and we’re not going to get any more.

If you say yes to everything someone asks you to do, you’re going to be so overburdened that you won’t be available to people when they need you, except on those rare occasions when you manage to clear a task off your schedule. You require some flexibility, which means that you not only have to learn how to say no to some requests (or creatively negotiate them somewhat), but you also need to learn how to effectively deal with distractions and diversions—from people demanding your time to “helpful” technology that seems to command all your time.

And stop trying to be such a perfectionist! You don’t have to do everything; the idea is to be SuperCompetent, not SuperHuman. Superman’s a fantasy—and even if he wasn’t, you have to remember that he’s supposed to be an alien from another planet, not a human being. Knowing how to delegate and/or outsource tasks whenever you can, and having the wisdom to do so, is a must.

You’ll also need to learn effective scheduling techniques to make life easier for both you and everyone else, and hone them to maximum effectiveness so things don’t get out of hand. The same is true when it comes to meetings. As I’ve said elsewhere, a task will expand to fill the amount of time available; that’s something called Parkinson’s Law (after naval historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson, if you were wondering). Meetings are a prime example of the tendency for that to happen.

You don’t have to let time-stealers eat into your productivity! Stand up, step up, and take back your time!

Make it a productive day! ™

© Copyright 2010 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.

No related posts.

SUPERCOMPETENT KEY #1: ACTIVITY. Activity demonstrates value and reflects importance.

In this competitive economy, just being able to do your job is no longer enough.

Competence is simply expected in today’s workplaces. But you can’t be simplycompetent; you have to be SuperCompetent(TM) to get an edge. Laura Stack’s new book, SuperCompetent: the Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best (Wiley 2010), gives high potentials proven methods to reach peak performance and achieve breakthrough results.

You’ll discover the six keys to unlocking your full potential: Activity, Availability, Attention, Accessibility, Accountability, and Attitude. The Productivity Pro®, Laura Stack, gives you a clear and practical system for achieving Maximum Results in Minimum Time®. By contrasting SuperCompetent(TM) hero thinking with simply Competent zero thinking, you’ll see that transforming your performance is not about mantras but mindsets.

SuperCompetent will be available in August 2010, just in time for your fall conference or leadership development program.

When the rubber hits the road, the difference between merely having ability and being exceptional may be the difference between losing your job and keeping it. The best workers possess a constant, expansive ability to be good at everything they do, no matter how general or specific. In this next series of six monthly newsletter articles, I’ll show you how to master the six universal Keys to workplace success. In this first article, we’ll cover the first key: Activity.

SuperCompetent people have an acute sense of direction, in which the nature of their activities reflects their relative priorities. They’re particularly aware of one thing that escapes most of their colleagues: that being busy and being productive are two very different things.

You can be busy all day long, running from one brushfire to another, and not accomplish anything productive at all. True Activity involves knowing your goals intimately, keeping them constantly in mind, and working toward them in an efficient way that wastes a minimum of energy and time. SuperCompetent people aren’t hidebound by the old ways of doing things, either; if there’s a possibility of doing something more efficiently, they suggest or implement it. Here are a few ways to help you fine-tune your workday in the Key of Activity, keeping things humming along like a well-oiled productivity machine.

1. Know exactly why you work hard and what you’re trying to achieve. You can’t be very productive if you don’t know what you’re working for. Plan out your goals and dreams, and work toward achieving them. Learn what makes you tick, own your destiny, and keep focused on your mission.

2. Know what to do, when to do it, and why. Take initiative and do what needs to be done when it needs to be done. Don’t just work on projects in the order they come across your desk; learn to structure your time and processes effectively, or others will out-compete you.

3. Create systems to perform tasks more efficiently, so you can leave the office on time. Too often, we’re gulled into working harder than we should by stuff that was supposed to make our lives easier. Step forward and create or suggest more efficient ways of doing things, so that you can take back your time.

4. Regularly rest and recharge your batteries, so that you can be productive and creative when you return to work. For heaven’s sake, you’re not a robot. Take a break when you need to! As long as you don’t become a slacker, taking time off can be one of the healthiest, most productive things you can do.

5. Do the day’s most profitable and valuable tasks first. Instead of taking care of piddling brushfire issues, learn to delegate. Put the most important tasks at the top of your list, and work through them first–then do all the rest, if you have time. It’s not a sin to let unimportant tasks go.

At the end of the day, all that matters is results–and results are measured by productivity. That means you need to be very sure that your time is not only accounted for, but has real value.

Productivity, in its most meaningful sense, is all about reaching high-value goals in every area of your life, often in the shortest amount of time (but not always, such as spending time with loved ones). Nobody cares how many things you crossed off your list. Nobody cares how busy you were last week if key projects are falling through the cracks.

Only results matter, so strive to get the most value out of every day. Grab your dreams and get going!

Make it a productive day! (TM)

(C) Copyright 2010 Laura Stack. All rights reserved.
www.TheProductivityPro.com

No related posts.

Are New Years Resolutions really productive? Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), talks about how resolutions and how to really make positive changes for the New Year. (C) 2009 Laura Stack. All rights reserved. http://www.theproductivitypro.com

No related posts.