Busy or Productive?

One of the best ways to accelerate your progress towards achieving your most important goals is to understand the difference between being busy and being productive.
These days everyone is busy. We’re busy with work commitments, family commitments, community commitments and study commitments just to name a few. We all seem to start each day with a long and demanding ‘To Do’ list.

The big question is – Are the items on your ‘To Do’ list leading you towards achieving your most important goals?

Being truly productive does not involve simply getting a lot of tasks done. It involves identifying and completing the specific tasks that will lead you where you really want to go.

A great question to ask yourself at the end of each day is:
"Am I a step closer to achieving my goals than I was this morning?"
If the answer to this question is "Yes" then you’ve had a productive day. If the answer is "No" then chances are you’ve been very busy but not really productive.

The best way to make the transition from being busy to being productive is to follow these steps:

Step 1: Identify your most important current goals

Step 2: Determine the specific tasks that will move you a step closer to achieving each of your goals

Step 3: Schedule these tasks early in your day when you’re fresh and alert
For example, when I was a computer consultant, I was working up to 70 hours a week but deep down I knew that my actions were not taking me any closer to achieving my goals. I felt like a duck swimming against a fast flowing river. I was paddling as hard as I could but I just wasn’t getting anywhere.

Finally I realized what the problem was – I was always busy but never productive.

To break this pattern I set aside one hour a day as ‘My Time’ to work on my own business. This wasn’t always easy to find but I loved the feeling that came from knowing I was doing something productive each day to achieve my goals.

Eventually those one hour blocks of time led to the creation of PianoIsFun.com which in turn helped me to walk away from the corporate world.

So I encourage you today to make the transition from being busy to being productive by following the three steps above. When you know what your goals are and you commit to taking a productive step towards achieving them each day, your success really is just a matter of time.