Achieve Managerial Leverage

ONE OF YOUR goals as a manager is to increase the quality and quantity of your output relative to your input. There are several ways that you can increase or even multiply your productivity as a manager.

First, work harder. When you arrive at work, resolve to “work all the time you work.” Don't waste time. Don't chitchat with coworkers. Don't drink the coffee, surf the Internet, or read the newspaper. Instead, work all the time you work.

An unfortunate truth is that most people are lazy. It's not politically correct to say, but everyone knows it. Most people seek the path of least resistance in every action and continually strive to do the minimum of work possible over the course of the day. In fact, 50 percent of so-called “working time” is spent gabbing with coworkers, surfing the Web, reading the newspaper, taking care of personal business, going shopping, coming in later and leaving earlier, and so on. Most people are lazy and not very productive.

You can separate yourself from your coworkers by simply making a habit of “working all the time you work.” Work harder, and then harder still. Develop a reputation for being the hardest-working person in your company. Nothing will put you onto the fast track with your superiors more dependably than getting a reputation for being a hard worker.

Pick Up the Pace

Two, work faster. Pick up the pace. Develop a fast tempo in your work. Move quickly, as though you have a lot to do in too little time.

Working harder and working faster are habits that you can develop with practice and repetition. Get busy. Get going. Get started and keep going. Don't waste time.

Work Longer Hours

The third way to increase your productivity is to work longer. The average person puts in thirty-two to forty hours per week, and half of that time in the workplace is usually wasted on nonwork activities. Incomes must be diluted and reduced to account for the fact that most people are not particularly productive. When they do work, they usually work on activities that are fun and easy rather than activities that are big, valuable, and important.

You can double your productivity overnight with a simple formula practiced by top people in any field: Start a little earlier, work a little harder, and stay a little later.

If normal working hours are nine to five, you should make a habit of starting at 7:30 or 8 a.m. and working until 6 p.m. Work at lunchtime as well. This simple restructuring of your day will add three hours of productive time to your activities and virtually double your productivity overnight.

Set Priorities

Do more important things. Make a list before you begin and set priorities on your list. Remember the 80/20 rule, which says that 80 percent of the value of your contribution will be contained in 20 percent of the things you do.

Even more, according to the Law of Three, 90 percent of the value of your contribution will probably be contained in only three tasks or activities. Do you know what they are? If you could only do three things all day long, what would they be? Your answers will be the answer to the question: “Why am I on the payroll?”

Hold Your Feet to the Fire

Here's a great question that you should ask and answer at the beginning of every workday. “If I could only complete one task before I was called out of town for a month, what one task would it be?”

Whatever your answer, start on that task first thing, before you do anything else. Don't check your e-mail, get another cup of coffee, or read the headlines. Don't socialize with your friends. Put your head down and throw yourself into your most important task. Then, resolve to stay at that task until it is 100 percent complete.

If you start off every day by completing one important task, your productivity will increase dramatically. Even better, you will feel terrific about yourself. You will feel like a winner, like a high performer, because you are.

Tap into Teamwork

A well-organized team consisting of a few people working together can produce far more work than a large number of people working individually. So, divide up the work among several people, and then work together in harmony.

Whenever possible, delegate, downsize, outsource, and eliminate tasks so that you can get more of the most important things done in the shortest period of time. Assign or delegate everything that anyone else can do at least 70 percent as well as you. Work in harmony with your team members to increase your overall productivity.

Batch Your Tasks

When you do several similar tasks at the same time, you quickly move to the downward slope of the learning curve. Each repeated task takes less time than the previous task. After you have done seven to ten similar tasks, like checking e-mail, dictating correspondence, writing reports, or anything that is repetitive, you will be completing each task in 20 percent of the time that it took you to complete the first task in the series.

On the other hand, starting a task and then doing something else, coming back to that task and then stopping and doing something else again, can increase the amount of time it takes you to do something by as much as 500 percent. Single-minded focus and concentration is absolutely essential to high productivity.

Think of yourself as a factory, with inputs, work processes, and outputs. Focus single-mindedly on the most important outputs of your work, and when you do start work, resolve to work all the time you work.