🚀 5 Unusual Productivity Tips

High productivity is a topic that usually comes across as a little "unsexy", but it has a huge impact on your success and fulfillment.

This is especially true in leadership: If you as a leader significantly increase your productivity, you will have more time and energy to take care of the really important things, like developing your people or establishing strategic directions.

Most leaders I know complain about "too little time." In other words, their productivity is too low. So it's about time to work on this issue more intensively.

An important insight at the beginning: We all can always become more productive, i.e. achieve significantly more with the same input or the same results with significantly less input.

The difference in productivity can easily be a factor of 10, 100 or even 1000.

There are various methods how you can achieve this. I'll go into that elsewhere (or 👉 contact me for more info).

Here in this memo, I'll give you five somewhat unusual tips that can have a significant effect on your productivity with just minor changes.

1. Ask: "What happens if I don't do this now?

   This is a powerful question that you should ask much more often. The point is that we do many things simply out of habit, without questioning the effect.

   It's important that you look for the answer in both the short and long term. For example, if you don't read a certain book now, it may have little effect in the short term, but in the long term it will have a great deal of impact.

   In many places, however, the answer tends to be "not much" in any case. Then you should stop that activity or not start it at all.
   
   

2. Closed Door Policy.

   This tactic is completely contrary to the propagated Open Door Policy. The fact is that many people won't walk in through your "open door" anyway, and those who do often just want to unload their problems.

   In the end, you encourage unsteadiness among your people and reduce your productivity above all.

   Instead, have specific channels and times through which you can be reached.
   
   

3. Keep top goals in front of you all day.

   This is a long-standing tip: Write down your top goals every morning and physically have them in front of you throughout the day.

   Most leaders I know become extraneous to current events throughout the day, so they lose sight of their top goals.

   It helps immensely to have these goals in front of you all the time so you can say "no" to other things more often.
   
   

4. 5 Reminders a Day: "Is what I'm doing right now helping me achieve my most important daily goals?"

   This is another tip for staying on track. The best thing to do is set a reminder on your smartphone for five times during the day with the above question.

   You'll probably find yourself answering "no" to this question more often than not in that moment. Then interrupt that activity, walk out of the meeting, or whatever.
   
   

5. Move 10 minutes per hour.

   A key driver of higher productivity is your energy level. You can't be productive with fatigue.

   Regular exercise is one of the easiest levers to increase energy.

   My tip is to make it a habit to get up and move after no more than 50 minutes. This also works in meetings.
   
   

So, here you have five unusual tips for higher productivity. Try them out. One may work better for you than the other. All five tactics are guaranteed to have a positive effect. If you have any questions or would like to discuss them in more depth 👉 just get in touch.

➡️ Next steps:

Whenever you're ready, check out my ➔ coaching programs and set up ➔ a 15min appointment here to get to know each other.