8 STEPS to Re-establishing

Personal Productivity at Work

Work can sometimes become a little stale and it can affect your personal productivity.

When you are not challenged or engaged, or struggle to find similarities between what your organisation does and what you want to achieve, our personal productivity can decline. This feeling can leave us feeling detached from our work and probably disliking it.

The good news is you can do something about it.

Is starts with

YOU

Here's how YOU can regain your personal productivity at work.

u  Establish the things you enjoy about your role.

u  Establish the things you want to improve in your role.

u  What are the priorities of your organisation and how can you support them to achieve it?

u  What are the areas for development you need personally?

u  Have an open conversation with the person that can make something happen for you and you trust.

What do you need to BE to be success?

Set achievable goals and actions.

Reflect and re-define your actions, goals and areas of development.

P

This process is an action orientated

(you need to be proactive to in order for

it to be successful) process that requires effort on your behalf.

If you have the intention of staying in your current position

or you are considering setting yourself up for a promotion, this process will

KICK START your actions

so you can be the first inline for that promotion.

Things I enjoy about my job

u  Create a list of the things you like most and enjoy most about your job and role.

u  Think why you took the job in first place and what interests you about the organisation.

u  If this is difficult to think of this consider what benefits your company brings to it customers and how it benefit them.

u  Read the list over and whittle it down to two or three main reasons.

1

RRRR

Things I need to improve

There are likely to be areas of your focus and performance that need active attention in order to improve the your productivity.

These are likely to be one of two areas or both: your behaviour and attitude towards your role and organisation and/or skills that you need to improve that allow you to complete the job better and more efficiently.

2

My workplace priorities 3

At any point in time companies and organisations all have multiple and competing priorities that can cause confusion

and stress among your colleagues.

Positioning yourself as a helpful and supportive person willing to support others on the delivery of important tasks and assignments can be good for your levels of engagement.

JUST MAKE SURE YOUR OWN

WORK AND COMMITMENTS ARE COMPLETE FIRST!

My workplace priorities

Be certain to ask the following before taking on any large projects or tasks you undertake: u  What does success look like? u  Who's in charge and who will I report to?

u  Who am I working with? u  How much autonomy do I have? u  How long will the task take?

The last thing you want to do is get lumbered with a dead-end assignment that compounds your feelings and thoughts about your workplace and job.

REMEMBER: The aim is to be supportive in helping the organisation

and team meet their priorities, not a dumping magnet.

You will most likely be able to find out what the organisation's priorities are from:

u Senior managers

u Team leaders

u Department managers

u Directors.

Create a full list of the list of priorities

map out your skills.. ..and abilities

against the projects.

You now have an opportunity to sell yourself on the skills and abilities you used

and this could be useful to the project or task.

During the project or after don't forget to update your CV

with any new skills.

Personal development needs

1.  What professional development would you need in order to do your job better?

2.  What training would keep you up to date on changes in your industry?

These are questions that you need to ask yourself every so often. ?

FROM MY EXPERIENCE I FEEL MORE DISCONNECTED FROM MY JOB WHEN I'M NOT

LEARNING SOMETHING NEW ABOUT MY INDUSTRY.

Personal development needs

u  Write a list of the training that you think would beneficial to your role and job.

u  Next to it write a brief description on how it would benefit your day to day work.

u  The reason I ask you to write this reasoning is so you can rationalise the training to yourself and then your superiors.

u  Professional development can be expensive so your managers will want to know that it will be useful and contribute to your organisation.

4

Open conversation with a trusted and supportive person who can make things happen

This part requires some skill and prior thought before having a conversation with your trusted and supportive person.

The aim of this conversation is to gain agreement from your supportive individual and to help you gained the necessary benefits from taking on the project.

5

This person could be

THE ONE WHO GAVE YOU THE PROJECT

or it could a trusted colleague that has your best intentions at heart.

Open conversation with a trusted and supportive person who can make things happen

u  Briefly explain why you have decided to improve personal productivity.

u  Describe the things you want to improve on and how you plan to do this through helping the organisation achieve it priorities.

u  Ask for their support and if there is anything else you should be considering.

u  Ask them if they are happy for you to ask for advice on aspects of the project when needed.

Thank them for their support.

If you are in a situation where you don't have anyone you trust that is supportive you may want to consider one of two things:

1.  Begin building a network of people that support you in your journey to improve your personal productivity. This takes time but can be another way of developing new engagement at work.

2.  Ask the next best person you trust and who is supportive. This person may not hold the power to make things happened but can be a useful ally on your journey. Ask the same questions as above and use them to keep you on task.

I am...

u  You now need to consider what YOU need to BE in order to succeed in improving your personal productivity at work.

u  What are you going to do to develop the appropriate skills and abilities?

u  Here you are going to measure the gap between where you currently are and where you want to be.

u  You will then develop some understanding of how to go about doing this through consideration of what this looks like to you?

6

I am...

u  Review your goals and write the 3 goals that will have most impact in a single column.

u  In another column write 3 desired actions that you don't have that would help you to be successful.

u  In the third column write where you are against the desired qualities.

u  Now in the fourth and last column write down some words and actions that will help you bridge the gap between desired actions and your actual qualities.

6

You’re nearly there! Now you are setting yourself some clear goals that you can stick to over the coming weeks. There is research to suggest it takes between 21 days and 66 days to form sustainable change (James Clear, 2014). So when creating your plan, think between 21 day and 66 days for making an impact on your personal productivity at work.

Setting Achievable Goals 7

Your goal is to get all 6 steps compete within 21 - 66 days.

Plan when your going to complete these steps and stick to them.

Tell someone (someone who can hold you to account)

you starting the process and you plan to get this done in the stated amount of time.

Continuing the personal productivity cycle

u  During my experience of trying to improve my personal productivity it became apparent that this was an ongoing process and it needed to be part of the way I worked.

u  So once you have gone through the entire process ensure that you re-evaluate your achievements and perform the process again.

u  To continue to be productive and engaged I would recommend you perform this process at least once every6 months.

8

This process is an active and

dynamic process, meaning you will

only get out of this process what you

put in.