This week’s Pearl of Leadership Wisdom is on…….

Personal Productivity

“Lost time is never found again.”

“Time is money.”

- Benjamin Franklin

It is true that time is the only commodity that we cannot buy more of. And we all have the same amount. And those who earn twice what we do don’t spend twice as long earning it.

Last week we spoke about High Payoff Activities – the things we do to deliver our goals. Personal Productivity is about spending as much time as possible on these activities to the aggressive exclusion of everything else. Most people spend no more than 20% of their time on High Payoff Activities. We can increase this to 60 – 70%. Imagine what that does to our goal-achievement and hence our success.

The writer Steven Covey talks of Big Rocks. You can fill a bucket with Big Rocks, then gravel, then sand, then water. In that order. Try doing it the other way around. The Big Rocks are our High Payoff Activities – the actions that will directly determine how successful we are. The gravel, sand and water are the little things that don’t matter. They are Low Payoff Activities.

Knowing what our goals are and what High Payoff Activities will deliver our goals, we look at our calendar and we check that we have put the Big Rocks in the bucket first: today, tomorrow and every day.

Next week…..

Personal Productivity II – doing ALL our High Payoff Activities, not just the ones we LIKE.