Doesn't it happen to you that your day is ending and it seems that you have not done anything?
Yes, you have been very busy for sure, but of labor productivity very little. What if answering emails, putting out fires everywhere, urgent calls, etc ... etc ...
Something that drives me and other entrepreneurs, freelancers and employees to the head is labor productivity. Until I did not remedy it, I was going crazy like you and wondering how to be more productive. He ended the day overwhelmed and frustrated for not achieving the goals he had "thought" for that day.
What is labor productivity?
La productividad laboral es realizar el trabajo propuesto en el menor tiempo viable, manteniendo el quality level.
If you are in a company and with the same resources, the estimated time from one person to another varies, we can say that one worker is more productive than another.
We usually confuse work productivity with being busy all day and walking around like "headless chickens".
When the end of the day comes and we have the feeling that we have done many things but in the end nothing productive, it is that something is wrong.
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Labor productivity in freelancers
If you are an entrepreneur and at the same time you work at home, things get even more complicated.
There are persons que si trabajan en casa y no se organizan pueden pasar el día entero con correos, en las redes sociales y demás. Cuando se dan cuenta se les ha terminado el día.
In the world we live with a lot of external influences such as cell phones, emails, calls etc... If we do not organize ourselves well, we will peck all over the place and we will not really take care of what is really necessary to grow our business on the Internet. .
How many of us don't have time for anything?
But you will see how that is not true at all, it is quite similar to when we say that we do not have time to read or go to the gym, but I do not know what happens that to play Candy Crush or Play we always find time.
First of all we will have to differentiate the important and urgent things with the non-important and non-urgent things and where time is running out.
Habitualmente para que las cosas urgentes no nos coman y andemos siempre apagando fuegos y con un alto estrés, si hacemos una buena administración del tiempo las cosas urgentes disminuirán debido a que les hemos dado la relevance que disponen en su momento.
We have to control the time and not the other way around.
But what happens to us?
Well, regularly when we do not set a date to close objectives we dedicate ourselves to procrastinating, because as it is something that can take us time to do or we do not feel like doing and at the same time since it is not urgent, we postpone it indefinitely until it becomes something really super urgent.
There we have the problem, urgent tasks start to eat us up and we overflow. "We are no longer on the ball" and our work productivity is going to waste.
Labor productivity indicators in Spain
Here in Spain we are not the best in labor productivity. We have the lowest index in Europe and the United States. We only have Poland and Portugal that beat us in this area.
It is somewhat shocking, when we are the ones who spend the longest time at our jobs.
We must pay attention that in the last 50 years working hours have decreased much more in other European countries than in Spain and they are still more productive. For you to visualize how productivity has nothing to do with the time spent.
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I think that here in Spain we need a bit of training to be more productive, if we want to get closer to our European neighbors and have more time to dedicate to other important activities in our lives.
We have to make a change in our mindset.
The change is both for companies, which must make internal changes aimed at obtaining greater productivity, and also for employees, who must be more responsible in their jobs.
Techniques to improve labor productivity
We are going to use a scheme similar to the one that Stephen Covey has in his book the "7 habits of highly effective people" that I recommend it to you above all and some guest on the podcast Digital Entrepreneurs He has also advised us on some occasion.
The urgent and important in productivity
Urgent / important:
Estamos en este cuadrante es que esto hay que hacerlo ya y es algo prioritario, a modo de ejemplo: entregar un trabajo a un client fuera de plazo, ir al médico debido a que te encuentras muy mal etc… Tenemos que hacerlo debido a que no queda más remedio.
Now, if we plan well, in this area we should have almost nothing unless it is something accidental or because we have postponed it. In the case of delivering a job to a client, if we have a good planning, it should not be in this area and have to run at the last minute.
If we had planned and done the course that we had to take to gain more clients with enough time, it would not become something urgent when you really see that you are losing clients.
If you go to the dentist when it's time, you shouldn't run away when you can't take any more pain.
I think it is clearer that in this quadrant we live constantly stressed.
Urgent / not important:
We regularly lose a lot of time in this area, this is the one that takes up the most time. What is happening? That if we are doing a job and we are interrupted by calls, orders, continually answering emails, the same with social networks, etc... the task is never finished.
This zone is the one that takes away all your time to finish important / non-urgent tasks.
Not urgent / important:
Having unplanned customer jobs with time to be able to perform, physical exercise, going to the doctor to have a tooth filled, training with training programs to improve professionally, relating more with our loved ones and friends, etc...
We do not pay attention to this area because we see it as far away, and we have not set some deadlines in the calendar, it would be… yes, I already…. What usually happens is that it ends up becoming urgent/important due to not having planned the work or the responsibilities we have in our lives well.
Not urgent / not important:
Distracciones varias, perder tiempo en las redes sociales personales, cambiar el modelo de coche, cambiar de despacho, etc… A no ser que a modo de ejemplo el coche be una herramienta de trabajo y no funcione entonces estaría en el otro cuadrante, sería algo importante/no urgente.
In this chapter, what we have to do is directly not to do it, unless we have nothing else to do, which is difficult.
If you pay attention in which quadrant you usually spend a lot of time, you will see how you can solve the labor productivity problems that entrepreneurs have.
Time is the most valuable thing we have, take advantage of it!
What hours are you most productive?
Cógete una agenda como Evernote o Google Calendar y márcate tu horario. Además tienes herramientas de productividad que ya comentaremos más adelante que te harán la vida más productiva.
You must find out when you are most productive. Each person is a world, one can be more productive in the morning and others are more in the afternoon or night. Once you have this clear, organize yourself and distribute the working hours you have (they can be 8, 6, 12 whatever).
Productive tasks put them in the time that you are best to work (important things).
Color difference between urgent and important things.
When you get to work it means: turning off your cell phone, not answering emails etc... Just focus on producing for your business, whatever business it is. As an example, if you are an editor and you write content for third parties, just focus on those hours producing that content for your clients, without distractions.
At the latest the day before you should know what you are going to do the next day. It is a practice that works very well.
One of the things that happened to me and I'm sure it also happens to you, is that we try to fill in the agenda the same day and that doesn't work. We will lose time with urgent things, answering emails, thinking, etc. with which we will begin to procrastinate and time will get out of hand.
The same day do not plan.
We also have to learn to say no, both to clients and to our friends who ask us for favors.
To the former because sometimes we try to monopolize everything even when it really is not our task so as not to remain bad or for fear of losing the client. But it is much better to be honest with yourself and with the client. If you can't do it or subcontract assuming that you work like that, say no.
Something similar happens to your friends, they ask us for unpaid favors and in the end, if we don't cut, we will only work for them. At the same time he thinks the word is spreading.
How to organize our tasks
I recommend the David Allen method, Getting Things Done to improve labor productivity. You have the book in Spanish entitled: "Organize yourself effectively." Then at the end of the article I will put links to the books.
The method is based on following 4 phases:
- collect
- Process
- Organize
- Review
collect: Take everything from our mind and deposit it in a notebook or an application where we will let out everything we have in mind.
Process: Cogeremos uno a uno todas las tareas que hemos depositado en el Blog de notas y la procesaremos de la siguiente forma:
Case: A task needs to be done
- Is it going to take us 2 min. or less ?, do it now.
- If this task is not for you, delegate it.
- If it does not reach any of the previous two, it is postponed.
Case: a task is not needed now
- Please file for reference to come back to later.
- Throw it away if you don't need it.
- It's interesting but right now you can't take care of it, put it off for later.
- If you do not know who to delegate, report it to be reviewed again.
Organize: The tasks that need an action will be classified by folders.
- Actions: Tasks that we have to carry out as soon as we can.
- Projects: Tasks that require more than one action.
- Waiting: When you are waiting for something external or have delegated to someone.
- Perhaps: Things to do but now is not your time.
Review: It is essential to review homework daily. Delete completed tasks and rearrange again if priorities have changed.
Por si lo deseas más claro te dejo el siguiente vídeo de Youtube:
Don't miss all my podcast.
Time control tools to improve work productivity
We have many tools to manage labor productivity, I have chosen the ones that I think will serve you best, but try them and decide which one works best for you.
With these tools we realize reality. We will look at the amount of time spent on each type of task. You will realize the percentage that you use in each one of them and regularly we think that it is much smaller than it really is, you will hallucinate.
Harvest
This time control tool is one of the most recognized, you can use it both on a computer and on a Mac, it has versions for Android and iOS devices.
You have a stopwatch where you will have the option to see the hours you are dedicating to each project. If you have client projects, you will be able to allocate the expenses of each project and this will help you when you have to make the respective invoice.
With Harvest You also have a billing chapter where you can create your invoices manually or assigning the hours you have invested in the project plus the expenses it has caused you. Very useful.
Toggl
Toggl It is also one of the best and has an attractive design, you can use it on all devices and operating systems like the previous one. You should also try it, you will like it a lot.
Mite
Mite It is a very simple tool to use but with great potential, it focuses on only one task. You can work as a team with statistics for each member and the reports are super practical and simple. You can also export the data to CSV or Excel.
Improve work productivity with Google Chrome extensions
Las extensiones son cada vez más usadas para casi todo, y como no podía ser de otra manera para la productividad laboral además hay unas cuantas. Las extensiones se instalan en la barra del browser, yo la tengo bastante llena de extensiones.
I do not advise you to fill it with extensions that you do not use.
The best thing is that you try some accounts and in the end leave installed the ones that you are going to use.
Here you have a selection of them:
Google Calendar
This labor productivity tool, if you don't have it, you're already running late. The duration of Google Calendar is essential when you are working. If you have to write down a task directly, you click on the extension and a drop-down appears with the tasks that you have assigned and it gives you the option to add from there and it directly places it on the day that you have told it.
Send for Gmail
This extension Send for Gmail sirve para enviar links de forma directa desde nuestra cuenta de correo de Gmail. Si deseas mandar un link interesante a alguien o a ti mismo de algo que estás viendo y que resulta interesante, solo debes de «pinchar» en la barra de navegación donde tienes el icono de Gmail y de forma automática se abrirá el correo para que envíes este link. Súper útil, no debes de andar abriendo el correo, copiar, pegar etc…
PageArchive
Very interesting, it allows us to archive the pages that we are visiting and save them to consult whenever we want even when we do not have an internet connection. You must try it.
Google translator
How many times when we are browsing are we interested in translating a page or basically a word that we do not know? Surely many, especially if you spend as much time as I do in front of the PC, because this extension Google translator it comes to you in a thousand wonders.
Save to Google Drive browser
Another extension that you cannot miss for your work productivity. It makes it possible to take screenshots or a selection of it and save it as an image in your Google Drive.
The next tool is not exactly a duration of Chrome but I highly recommend it, you will save a lot of time writing the same thing repeatedly.
TextExpander
This tool is very useful to program what we write repeatedly every day.
If you have emails that you will always answer the same way because they are very similar questions. As an example: if you are in support answering emails and you answer the same question repeatedly, it is best to use this tool and only by putting the word that you have previously defined, the answer will appear at once. You can use it in many cases, try it and you will gain a lot in productivity.
No te pierdas estas 60 extensiones de Google Chrome para SEO and Social media.
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Conclusion to be entrepreneurs and productive employees
As you can see, there are a number of tools and extensions that can contribute to work productivity and have more time for our leisure and loved ones, but we must always start from the foundations.
That those things that start out being important do not become urgent, because what can happen is that we are so stressed that we no longer use the previous productivity tools. The rush is not good, get organized.
Happy labor productivity!
If you liked this article, I thank you for sharing it with your loved ones and I'll wait for you in the comments.
How do you manage to improve your work productivity on a day-to-day basis?
Would you add any more tools to improve work productivity?
Image by twobee at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
