Productivity Hack
Have you ever struggled prioritizing tasks so that you are most effective throughout the day. Personally, I have struggled with this for years. In fact, if I can be completely honest, I still struggle as I bounce from idea to idea. In my desire to become a better leader, this has led to me investigating some time management books.
One of these books is Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. The premise is simple. If every morning you would eat the biggest nastiest frog you found. Then the rest of your day wouldn’t be that bad. Please do not miss the message here as I do not endorse the eating of frogs. This metaphor is to get you thinking about the hardest task you have for the day that once it is off your mind you would be more productive.
To help you figure out what your frog is I want to look at the Pareto principle. This is also known as the 80/20 rule. This principle was developed back in 1896 by Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. He realized that 80% of the land was owned by 20% of the population. Also, he recognized a correlation that 20% of his plants were bearing 80% of the fruit.
From his discovery I bet you will notice a similar pattern in your day-to-day life. We all know that one “guy” or “gal” in the office seems to get the most done. You may notice this in your equipment as you have one that you use for 80% of your tasks.
I recently came to the realization of how impactful this principle was as moving my team members into a different position. We went from having a 9-batch day to a 12-batch day. So, we did it again the next day with a result of 11-batch day. What this proved to me is that focusing my largest priority for every day that I’m at work is having the right people in the right seat so that they can succeed.
The moral of this story is likely there is a task in your life that if you focused on that you would see significant growth. This can be applied to your faith, education, business, health, and relationships. The task may be an ugly frog that you eat every morning. That task may only take a small part of your day but will pay huge dividends in your life. The 80/20 rule is not an end all be all to being productive but if applied you will see growth. It may take time but keep your hand to the plow and don’t look back.
