The fast track only gets faster and faster. And where does that fast track lead us? Too often to burn-out, right? And burn-out can often take 6 months to 2 years to reverse. Clearly, the answer does not lay in doing more, faster and/or longer. The answer lies in internal goals, motivation and real world implementation of the most important things.
How you define the “most important” things and how you psychologically create your own mental environment to safely pursue increased productivity may be aided by these “tricks.”
- Do the Most Important Task (MIT) of the day first. You know what that task is. No one has to tell you. Just do it. First. Then you won’t waste any of your time procrastinating and/or worrying about the consequences of not doing it. For agents, that means getting on the phone and generating new business daily.
- Postpone your rewards…not forever but until after you’ve done your MIT. By self rewarding after you’ve done your MIT, you’ll be programming your brain to believe and trust that you will, in fact, reward it for a task well done, on time and on priority. Then you’ll be more motivated to do your MIT every day.
- Now do what you “need to do.” But only after you’ve done your MIT and after you’ve rewarded yourself for doing it. This is where you can revisit files and paperwork.
- Focus on what you can do…well. This is a huge key to productivity. Most of us like to do what we do well. When the bulk of the tasks that involve your strong suits are completed, it will become easier and faster to complete those tasks you may consider to be your weaknesses.
- Think about how to help the clients who will use your services and your expertise. By thinking about helping other people, you’ re giving your psychological mind a purpose, a reason to do your job and to do it well. This mindset of service focuses on giving your mind an ideal environment to be productive rather than focusing on productivity itself.
- Stay connected with people. Do you have accountability partners, a coach or a mentor to celebrate, share with and learn from? We need both to keep up our productivity, creativity and effectiveness.
- Avoid perfection…there is no such thing. When 90% of a task is complete, honestly consider whether or not the last 10% is really necessary or worth doing, particularly if that last 10% is going to take another 20 hours to complete. If you were a neurosurgeon, that last 10% is essential. If not, “done is better than perfect.”
