#1 Way to Improve Productivity and Increase Profit

Posted on April 8, 2008 by David Gass 15 Comments

Do you wish you had an extra four hours everyday?
Do you find yourself feeling like you never get ahead?

For years I attended seminars and read books on how I could get more out of every day by improving my time management skills and being more organized. I spent tens of thousands of dollars to learn something that I thought would be the magic formula.

I thought if I just had an extra four hours everyday I would be able to accomplish so much more. I found that all the techniques and strategies I learned from the seminars and books were helpful in being a little more organized but it really didn’t make an impact on my productivity and ultimately the profits of my company. I spent more time organizing my tasks and what I wanted to accomplish but there was always a fire to put out, an employee that needed my help or a client that needed to talk to me right away.

For years I kept an open-door policy with our staff. If you wanted to speak with me, just walk in my office. I wanted to be available anytime. After all, our staff is the most important asset we have next to our clients. So I wanted to be available. What I learned later was that the “Got a Minute” interruptions all day long were taking me away from the activities that would generate the profits for the business and allow me to pay more to our staff.

It was until after several years of attending seminars and reading books that I finally found the one tool that has changed the way I do business and gave me more life in my day. It is one simple task that I wish I had started years ago.

A friend of mine and I were talking about being more productive and being able to work less but make more money. I really wanted to say that I could do that. He told me about a technique he learned from some very successful entrepreneurs and thought I should try it out.

What they told him was to take his highest priority activities and do them first.

It was that simple. Something I had heard in variations of techniques in the past, but the fact it was said so simply had a light bulb turn on for me.

For years I have kept my top priorities on a pad of paper on my desk. These priorities are activities that will generate the most profit and / or revenue for me. Believe it or not, health is one of those priorities. If I am not feeling good I can’t get a lot done. In addition I have other priorities that revolve around different revenue generating activities, mostly to do with marketing and developing promotions. The list would sit on my desk and when I got through everything else I would start to work on it.

This was completely the wrong thing to do. It took me awhile but I finally figured out that doing everything everyone else wanted me to do and trying to please everyone else by answering their emails right away and returning phone calls was simply counter-productive to putting more life in my life. Most entrepreneurs will do just what I did for years. You wake-up, get ready for work and rush off to make sure you get to the office before everyone else just so you can get some work done before they all show up. Instead you spend the time reading and responding to emails and completing projects they wanted. That way when they get to work you have something for them to do.

Then you think you will start to work on your projects only to have one interruption after another throughout the day causing you to never get to the work you needed to get done. Then you tell yourself you will stay late tonight to finish the project. Instead you find yourself answering phone messages and responding to more emails. Finally, you are so tired you decided to leave your projects until tomorrow when you get in before everyone else.

By taking my highest priority activities and doing them first has changed everything for me. I’m more productive, my staff is more productive and we are more profitable because of it. Best yet, I have more life in my life. I get to spend more time with my wife, 7-year old and 1 year old daughters.

How I’ve done it is simple. Make sure that I have a clear list of what my top priorities are for my companies. Then I rank them to what will have the biggest impact on profitability the soonest. Creating the list is not a simple task. I typically spend a week a year developing this list and prioritizing them. I put together a spreadsheet on the long term impact of each on the profitability and how much time it will take. I work off of this list each day.

Here is a typical day for me:

I get up about 5:00am, spend time with my family and make sure my daughter gets off to school. I spend 30 minutes exercising and then get into the office about 7:30am.

HERE IS THE KEY: I then shut my door and everyone knows not to bother me for the next two hours. I then focus 100% of my time on my #1 priority from my list. Some times I can get done faster than two hours and some times it takes two and a half. I want to feel good about my time spent before moving on with the rest of my day.

By doing the # 1 priority first I spend my time on what is most important and has the biggest impact on our companies.

Then around 9:30 or 10:00am I will sit down with my “Chief of Staff”. She reads and sorts through all my email and other messages and requests I get. We review priorities of what others need to have me do at that time. You see what I have done here? I spent the first few hours on my time and then do what others want. I can now focus more on what they want and need because I’m not worry about what I need to get done. People enjoy that time with me more now and I do to. Depending on the day I will stay late a couple nights a week to focus again on top priorities and the other days I leave early to spend with my family, giving me more life in my life.