1. Capitalize your strengths! – By delegating your tasks out.  Those mandate, boring and those that you feel unhappy about, you get to focus on those tasks that are strategic, exciting and you feel a sense of achievement doing it.  Why?  You are actually working on things that capitalize on your strengths!  When you are capitalizing on your strength, you feel good as you learn faster and complete work faster.  This creates a “always winning” feeling!  The more you win, the more you likely to be productive doing it!
2. You feel great! – Let’s be honest with each other, nobody will be happy working on something that they dislike.  When something that you dislike is being delegated out (especially those that can dragged for days), you would not feel bore down thinking that a pending (boring) task is your to-do list.  However, given that you had delegated out the boring tasks (those that you feel boring working at), now you are left with tasks that you like to do, and you will feel great with these tasks!
3. Boosts team communication! – This is the time to communicate with your colleagues.  Find out what they are doing AND what they are doing best. Find out if they like to work on something else or alternative work options instead of what they are currently too.  You be surprised!  They may be your answer to your problems.  Why?  They may want to take on those tasks that you are not keen working on but they are unsure how to approach you.  They may want to have a share of your work to boost their career profile!  Furthermore, through this communication, you get to know your colleagues and they get to know you better too!
4. You are not the right person to do it – Sometimes, you may not be the right authority to perform the assigned task.  You may not be in the right department to handle the task too.  The problem here is you do not know how to say “no” and pass on to someone else.  You blindly accept the task and handle it alone.  That is not the correct way to approach the task.  Find out if you should be doing it in the first place.  Hand it to someone that has the capability to handle it or the right position to handle it.

With all these reasons (and those mentioned in Achieve Personal Productivity Through Delegation!), it is really beneficial to start delegating tasks to your colleagues.  It will be unwise to put a boundary on delegation.  You never know how much benefit you can reap off through delegation. Keep options opened if tasks are assigned to you.  You will be surprise that your colleagues may want to have a share of your work to help them boost their career profile.  You never know too! J

1. You get work done faster than what yourself can – The first benefit of delegation, is things will move faster than you would when you do it alone.  Things will be completed faster as you distribute tasks and allow them to run concurrent to what you are doing.
2. You need not work on task that you find boring or unhappy handling it – The second benefit of delegation!  The boring mandate tasks are assigned to someone to do it.  You may not like the tasks assigned to you but somebody may like it.  You will be surprised that your colleague actually loves the printing of the sales documents or preparing the travel documents for you.  It is strange but it is true.  With something that is boring to you (where you will be unproductive doing something you do not like) being delegated out, now, you can focus on things that can keep you happy thus bringing up your morale and productivity.
3. You can focus on things that are strategic – When the boring and mandate tasks (in your perspective) are assigned to colleagues who love doing it, you are not free to focus on the things that are important to you.  Now, you have more time to meet strategic clients, business development, build relationship or attend to your customer’s needs!
4. You may uncover things that you may have missed out if you were to perform the task alone – Through delegation, with someone who is passionate about the delegated task, he may be able to uncover loop holes to the task and may manage the task better than you if you were to be doing it alone.

A word of caution, delegation may seem to be the choice for personal productivity.  It works really well when the task delegated fits directly with the prospective colleague.  However, most of the time, it is not the case.  Chances are likely that you will face resistance from the colleague as he will be taking on more responsibilities.

Another point that you should be careful is the abuse of delegation.  Delegation is not about shifting responsibilities.  It is to allow you to be free of work that is counter-productive to your overall productivity.  You will still need to hold responsibility of the output delivered from the delegate colleague.  If you have the mentality that delegation is shifting responsibilities (and put blame on others when they cannot deliver), unfortunately, this is the incorrect way to view delegation.

We hope you can see the benefits of delegation in relation with personal productivity.  A good fit in the delegated task is the key component to delegation.  With much boring, unhappy, mandate, etc type of tasks been freed up, now you can work on more meaningful and important tasks that will greatly enhance your personal productivity!

It is no surprise that you experience such things.  In fact, most of us actually have this problem of bringing past information back for use. Our brains are excellent in filtering incoming information, retain those required ones and understand in our own world the relevant ones that are most appealing to us.   If our brain does not do all these filtering, we will be overwhelmed with the massive amount of information flooding into us.  Ironically, the main problem that disallowed us to be effective in absorbing information is the filtering mechanism in our head.  Our brain filter worked in a way not really intended by us.  We do not choose to retain the information we absorb.  It is sub-conscious.  Our brain chooses to retain “right” information that sometimes isn’t useful to us.

It may be difficult to really understand how our brain works.  They are built on our life experiences and our map of the world (NLP concept).  To really understand how our brain works, we need to be fully aware of what we are doing, hearing, seeing and thinking from our past till current date.  That is a topic by itself.  Ok!  Let’s leave the understanding of our brain aside for now and focus on making your brain effective in absorbing information.  Now, experience is the key word here!

We need to get our brains experienced with the things that we are doing, seeing, hearing and thinking now!  Experience is based on engaging certain similar things or events for a period of time, which means you, need to be familiar with the things you are engaging with.  Having experiences of the events, you will be able to understand things better.

For example, when you are reading a document, it may take ages for you to complete it if it is like hundreds of pages long.  If you are not familiar with the document, you definitely take a longer time to complete reading it.  Even so, you may not understand what you had read fully and have to restart the process again.  This is counter-productive and waste lots of time re-reading it.  How do you improve the effectiveness in absorbing information then?  To get you understanding the document faster, instead of reading the document line by line, drilling to every single detail, try this.  Make a quick glance of the entire document.  Get an overview of the document and its flow.  Do this a few times if you do not get the big picture initially.  Once you get the bigger picture, you know what to expect from the document and you absorb information faster as you know what is important in the document and what is not.  This top-down approach allows you to pin-point to specified areas that you require information.

There are many ways to improve efficiency in absorbing information.  This is just one of them, which is to improve familiarity and experience of the information to further improve the efficiency in information absorption.  Note, this works for many people but not everyone.  Everyone absorb information differently.  You may have your own method that works well for you too! J

What you do not want to do is to be on medical leave for your most important meeting in the office for the week.  Often, we neglect the very basic need of our individual needs that is our personal health.  A healthy body allows us to think and work properly in the office.  It is required for personal productivity.  You won’t be able to do anything if you fall sick easily and therefore, it is essential that we take good care of our body to keep ourselves afloat of our busy lifestyle and schedules.

1. Listen to your body – Most often, we neglect tell-tale signs that our body is falling apart in the office.  We often push ourselves above our limits and tire the body.  If you get lethargic easily at work, it is time to take a more proactive observation of your body.  Your body might be signalling to you that it needs some rest.  Yes we got time line to meet.  But you will need the body to meet the timeline.  Before your body fully breaks down into colds, take a break and get yourself away from work for a few minutes.  When you are at home, pamper yourself and give yourself more sleep.  These necessary breaks will allow you to get back your energy and health so that you can continue your work the following day!
2. Learn your limits – Another problem with fast moving individuals these days, is not knowing their limits.   They push harder than what they can cope.  They rush to meet the datelines and ignore that they have broken their body limits.  Your body needs the rest and its working even harder when you are pushing over the limits.  The body will tell you signs that it is working too hard.  Take a moment to listen to your body and rest.  Record times that you feel stressful physically and mentally.  Learn that these are your limits.  Manage your work style in a way that does not push your limits overboard.  What you need is a healthy challenge, not one that will create health problems!
3. Stretch – The simplest form of relaxation that you can do while sitting on the chair.  Stretching is beneficial as it releases the tension on your muscles, improves blood circulation and gives you a logical break of whatever you are doing.  If you are reading this right now, take a moment to stretch real hard!  If you can, stand up and do a full body stretch!  You’ll feel refreshed and alert after the full body stretch and ready to continue what you have left off!
4. Take the stairs – You may have the luxury of time to exercise daily or even weekly.  Why leave the exercise routine to the gym and parks?  Why not turn the office building into a workout facility?  You can skip the lifts and take the stairs up to your office floor.  Taking the stairs is helpful in working out your leg muscles and also working out the heart.  Make it a daily habit and you’ll be glad that you started it.  You will reach office with a healthier mind and body and ready with the challenges for the day!
5. Enjoy the sun – Most of our time is locked up in the air-conditioned building.  You get exposed to the virus and bacteria that is transmitted through the central ventilation or air-conditioning system.  Get yourself out of the office and enjoy the sun.  The sun will brighten you up and give you a chance to break away from being exposed to the virus and bacteria.  Furthermore, the sunlight provides you Vitamin D that is helpful to your health!

1. Enter the business cards into your main contact list – It’s important to have knowledge of who you met.  You never know when you need their help.  However, the task of consolidating your business card is so boring at times however, it has definitely value.  Therefore, use the free time you have on the plane and write down your business card contact information into your main contact list.
2. Fill out the expense reports – Write down all your expenses.  Keep your receipts in a folder that you will easily access it when you are making your company claims.
3. Do some planning – Now may be the right time for you to be alone to think about things.  It may not be easy to get the alone time when you are back in office and home.  So now is the chance and spend some giving some deep thoughts about growing your business or if you are employed, you think about your career progression.
4. Sort your text messages – You can remove unwanted text messages from your phone.  Save those important ones into archive.  This way your phone has the storage space and is ready for more new incoming messages!
5. Compose some emails – If you get delayed or waiting for the transit flight, and you have the luxury of wireless network in the airport, compose some emails that will be used for a later stage.  Create your business email templates if you have the time too.
6. Watch some videos – You’ve got to chill out a little.  Relax and watch a stored video.  But remember to have sufficient power to last you through all the videos you have.  If you have run out of power, get a book instead!
7. Read some books – Grab one book before you embark on the plane.  Reading is a good way to kill time.  At the same time, you gain valuable knowledge.  Therefore, spare some time to drop by the newsstand or bookstore at the airport and grab a book that can last you through the entire flight!

What are the things that you do to keep you busy?  We can use your tips too to keep ourselves occupied throughout the journey (except sleeping)

1. Devise a system to manage paper – The first thing that can make your desk messy is paper.  We make tons of printouts and leave them on our desk.  Devise a way to manage the paper on your desk.  Such as filing.  Placing in a to-do and done corner.  The more paper you have, the more likely you get yourself into a messy situation in handling them.
2. Get rid of Post-it notes – The many Post-it notes may not be signs of productivity.  Yes, some of us may be productive with Post-it notes, but not all of us.  Furthermore, the Post-it notes will only create messy and unsightly flaps of papers.
3. Trash those printouts – Trash those useless printouts if there is no use of them anymore.  Of course, they can be used as recycle paper.  Keep them in one corner if they are serving that purpose.  Keeping redundant printouts only waste space on the desk.  If possible, don’t even print out as they are not environmental friendly too!
4. Keep away unused stationaries – We usually leave our stationaries lying around on the desk.  Your pens, erasers, pencils, staple, etc are just little ingredients to a messy desk.  Keep them neat and tidy when you are not using them.
5. Keep your books – Keep the books in the shelves if you are not using them.  What’s the point of leaving them on the desk where it serves no purpose except as ornaments?  Take a stock take of your books.  They may be out-dated and not relevant anymore.  Whenever possible, dump those out-dated books!
6. Eat away from your desk – Go out to have your meal.  Not at your work desk.  There will be tendency that you will mess up your work desk with the food you’ve had for lunch!  You do not want to see the food debris of the hamburger you took for lunch, right?  Reward yourself with a lunch outside!
7. Limit photo frames on the desk – Your family photos will only distract you.  You will have the tendency to make a phone call home to check if everything is fine.  If you want to make an appointment for dinner, etc.  Keep the photo frames minimal.  Make them serve their purpose of giving you encouragement at work.  You be rewarded with a focus mind and a lesser time needed to wipe the dust off the photo frames!

1. Create a daily task list – The most effective way of staying focus is creating a daily task and strictly follow it!
2. Set available time slots for interactions (interruptions) – Colleagues have the tendency to drop by for questions.  You may not be ready and this cost you time.  Set time slots for them to approach you.  In this way, you will not be disturbed while working on your most important tasks.
3. Setup filters for your email program – Keep your emails organized in an automatic manner
4. Avoid checking personal email in the morning – Start with your work emails.  Generally, you will be more productive in the morning (not everyone).  Finish your work first before checking your personal email.
5. Set your Instant Messenger status to away – Keep those friends that just want a chat session with you.
6. Fill up a water bottle – That will save the trips to the water dispensing machine.  Also, you need water to stay healthy.
7. Find the best time to do repetitive and boring tasks – Watch out for time that you are most ineffective with in planning tasks.  Use this time to do boring tasks instead.
8. Don’t make long personal calls – Keep personal calls minimum.  Work is work.
9. Clean up your desk – A messy desk will give you distraction.  You will be distracted with the books or pen lying on the table.
10. Get a good chair – Get one that you are comfortable with.  You won’t be struggling with your sitting posture throughout the office hours!
11. Use shortcuts on your computer – Create shortcuts to programs that you frequently use.
12. Close programs you’re not using – It’s like keeping away those things from your working table.  You will get distracted with the lots of opened programs
13. Avoid spending time on social network sites – It’s never productivity to spend time on the social network sites.  They are not very useful when you want to deliver results.  Avoid spending time there.
14. Change your mindset and make work fun – This is the most difficult thing for anyone.  Not everyone can find fun in work!  But if you do, you can get satisfaction and stay focus on what you are doing.

1. Do not allow yourself to be internally overwhelmed – The first thing you should do is that you should not allow the many tasks on hand to overwhelm you.  The problem with most of us is that we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with all the tasks on hand work.  Thinking that you will never get to complete all the tasks.  This will create the first immediate mind block, telling you that you cannot complete ALL of them.  Now, you surely can complete SOME of them right at some point in time?
2. You can do it – The next thing you should tell yourself is that with all these work that you have, you still WILL BE ABLE TO COMPLETE ALL OF THEM!  Give yourself a positive proposition that you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Give yourself hope that you can finish all of the work on your plate.  When people start to think that they cannot do it, the subconscious mind will also trigger, reinforcing the behavior to act in a way that you will never see the light at the end of the tunnel!
3. There will be always new work coming no matter what – Yes, we must see the light at the end of the tunnel eventually.  That is for one task.  There will always be other new tasks popping into your schedule.  We’ve got to recognize it because we have to face it and not allowed ourselves to be demoralized when they enter into your schedule.  You’ve got to manage it!  Know which tasks you should be putting priority on.  Or you can stay focus on the current one and get it out of your to-do list first!
4. Put one thing at a time – This will allow you to focus on task at a time.  Sure, there will be hundreds and thousands of things to do, but you have to start at one point.  One point we repeat!  So put one task that you are comfortable touching it first.  Do not worry about the others; you will complete the current one eventually and this will get your gear going to complete the subsequent ones.
5. Recognize that you may not complete everything – However, if you can’t finish everything after how much focus you’ve put, it’s not the end of the world.  Recognize the fact that you cannot complete everything on time.  The good part is that you’ve got your engine started and worked on your best effort in completing tasks.  This will give you a morale booster in your subsequent tasks!

These mental blocks are inefficient and unproductive to an individual when they need to get work done.  It is definitely not procrastination, but sheer pressure that is built internally, creating these mental blocks, restricting you to complete your task.  The underlying principle is perseverance.  If you believed that you can reach the finishing line, you will do what it takes to get you to the finishing line.  Stay focus on the task.  Make belief that you can complete it.  Do not be affected by the new tasks that come along the way (there will be always).  Complete the task and eventually, you get your gear going for the subsequent ones.

1. Just do it! Follow the Nike tag line.  Just do it and now.  Procrastination leads to getting work piled at the later part of your day and life!
2. Throw your stuff away (without thinking)! Organized people do not hesitate about throwing things away.  They won’t be tempted to keep old worn out appliances around “just in case”.  They keep whatever can be use now.
3. Get into routine. Make it a habit of doing things at one shot.  Clean the basin when you are using it.  Shine the mirror after brushing your teeth.  No we are not being clean freaks here.  It’s about doing things at that point of time which won’t be left for a later date.
4. Put things where it should be. Disorganized people tend to dump things everywhere.  Literally everywhere.  Organized people on the other hand keep things in organized manner and they know where to retrieve them in future.
5. Write important dates on the calendar. Remember to check the calendar for important events.  Organizer people do it everyday to keep updated of the event up coming for the day.
6. Pick up yourself. If things are left all over the place, take the initiative and pick things up, place it where it should be.  Put them away before the mess gets out of hand.
7. Invest in organizing tools. But be sure that you like it and you use it frequently.  If the system is unrealistic or unhandy, you won’t use it.
8. Spare the little energy on small tasks. Many times the small tasks of putting things away and keeping things clean take much less time and energy than we think they will. Always remember, every little tasks completed is a contribution to complete a major task.  While the task is small, it may be significant in the long run.
9. Get yourself a daily planner. Daily planner can be anything from a decent calendar to just a piece of paper.  The key thing is to use it CONSISTENTLY.

Anyone, literally anyone can do it.  They are in matter of fact, little things that we can do everyday with minimal effort.  The real secret is the discipline in keeping your toes up to these little things.  For those of you who are struggling with disorganization, such simple tips can really give you the real boost in efficiency.

1. Communication

One of the most important skills in any business (where everyone is talking about) is effective communication.  It’s not just sales talk or negotiation.  It’s about communicating and understood by the other party.  Communicate clearly with your co-workers and clients, make sure all instructions and information are understood the way you want it to be.  Repeat and re-emphasize when you need to.  It doesn’t mean that you talk well is equivalent to being a good communicator.

By speaking clearly, concisely and checking back with that other party has understood what you have said, you can save a great deal of precious time

2. Planning

You can’t start without proper planning.  Be it a long term project or a short term ones, or a recurring one.  You need to plan.  You have to plan for the day, the week and the month.  Planning is essential to maximize your available time for the tasks you put forth and also for achieving your goals.

3. Prioritizing

Planning allows to list out all the things that needs to be done.  But we only got a certain amount of time that we have in our life.  We need to prioritize what is important to us.  Look at your To-do lists everyday.  Which one is more important and needs your attention first?

4. Procrastination

One of the biggest problems we humans encountered is procrastination.  The key thing is to admit that you are procrastination then identify the tasks that you put off the longest. Once you know which things you are likely to procrastinate about, find out the reason why you are not doing it.  By identifying the reasoning behind your procrastination issues, you can find solutions.  They can be breaking into smaller pieces, or plan the task as priority or find the best working time that you find most efficient at. Eliminate procrastination from your life and you see how much you can achieve everyday.

5. Delegation

Remember again, we have limited amount of time in a day.  You need leverage to do more tasks than what you can do alone.  Delegation comes in.  Delegate some of your routine tasks which you can quickly instruct someone else to take responsibility of.   Some of us may not like delegation as they find it a hassle to “prepare” the person for the task.  But before you think of that, give yourself the doubt that through proper communication, you will be able to automate some of the routine tasks, thus allowing you to work on the more important ones to you.