Start With A Win - Quick Wins: Productivity Leakage

Episode Date: May 17, 2019

Do you ever feel like there is a slow leak in your productivity throughout the day? It can be so easy to lose focus and get distracted by social media, reading the news, watching “just one��� episode of a show, March Madness. But on this quick episode of Start with a Win, Adam gives some suggestions for preventing this productivity leakage:Build in some accountability by convincing yourself that wasting time is wrongJust try to be more committed to focusing – it will make a differenceSet up a system of time blocking and stick to itWork on your emotional maturity and choice managementTry a technique like the “pomodoro” technique – focus on the task at hand with no distractions and then take a 5-minute breakUse an app like Focus@WillLinks:Pomodoro Technique: https://francescocirillo.com/pages/pomodoro-technique Focus@Will: https://www.focusatwill.com/Connect with Adam:https://www.startwithawin.com/ https://www.facebook.com/REMAXadamcontos/https://twitter.com/REMAXAdamContos https://www.instagram.com/REMAXadamcontos/ 

You're listening to Quick Wins with Adam Kantos. Let's talk about something. It sounds kind of weird. Productivity leakage. It does sound weird. It does. You know? Yeah, it seems like you might have to go to the doctor if you have too much productivity

leakage. Yeah, well, you know, you got to limit that productivity leakage. But there's nothing worse than having a slow leak in your day where at the end of the day you go, all right, how much did I just waste? Yeah. How much of it got away from me? Does that sound familiar sometimes? Well, yeah.

I mean, it seems like every single time you open up email or something like that, you get that leakage happening. It does. Yeah. You know? It'd be kind of funny if it made a noise like a balloon leaking some air out. Exactly. Yeah. So let's talk about two things, what causes it and how to prevent it. Okay. So this is quick hit. So we're going to keep it quick because we don't want any

productivity leakage. That's right. We're going to be very productive. Yeah. Even though we've just kind of been BS in our way up to this point, But ultimately, so what causes this? And what causes this is lack of focus, lack of finding that thing that you need to be working on and working on it. And let me give you an example. You pull out your phone and you open a social media app, okay? You just poked a hole in your productivity. Yeah. I hear that balloon deflating. Exactly. Yeah. That's the perfect example of it. Or from a lot, for a lot of people, I'll tell you a big productivity leakage, turning on the TV or like you said, opening your email. So how long can you sit there and scroll through your email and go, wow, I got something done. But

really all you did was read spam and delete stuff. I mean, come on. Yeah. That's not very productive. No. So wait. So, okay. So that causes it, right? These things. Yeah. So how do we prevent it? That's a good question. So it's interesting because if you, and you have to try this, you actually have to try this in order to experience the feeling. You have to convince yourself that it's wrong. You have to convince yourself, I don't want to do that. And hold yourself accountable to it. And because it's like a serious addiction. Try not to open Facebook for 24 hours.

Just try not to on your phone. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, you got this look of terror on your face, Mark. I'm frightened. How do I not get into Facebook? And you literally need to make sure that you work your systems and you hold yourself accountable to that. And just trying will make a difference.

Just making the attempt is enough to cause you to be more productive. And another way you can accomplish that is you can really seriously block your time and manage your choices. Ultimately, what it boils down to is your emotional maturity. Are you strong enough, emotionally mature enough to make the decisions when you decide, okay, I'm going to pull out my phone during a meeting, or I'm going to sit here at my desk and, and log into the final four or whatever it is. Are you emotionally mature enough to make that decision? It's choice management. Have you ever heard of the Pomodoro technique?

Yes. I love it. So it's the tomato timer. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, the idea of where, you know, you commit to being productive for 40 minutes, say. And then for that 40 minutes, you don't let anything else distract you. You turn off your internet or whatever you have to do to focus on your task at hand. And then as soon as that bell rings or, you know, that app notifies you that your time's up, then for five or 10 minutes, you can kind of have a little break and then go back to being productive. And I think that's very effective for people who need a little bit more structure and accountability around that.

And that's a great technique. I mean, ultimately what your goal is, is to create as much productive time during the day as you possibly can. And if that time is spent prospecting for sales on the phone, calling people, processing contracts, whatever it might be. Great. Figure out a way to do that. Run a Pomodoro timer or here's another one. Use an app for it. So like focus at will. I love that app and you can set the timer, you can pick the music. It plays some background music, put in your headphones and don't let anything else distract you during that time, but focus on getting things done the way that you need to do. So basically you've aligned yourself with a system that takes you away from being distracted,

but don't put Facebook on your browser. Don't put the basketball game on your browser. Don't do anything like that. Do the things that matter, and that's how you prevent productivity leakage. Thank you so much for listening to quick wins with Adam Contos if you've enjoyed this content head over to iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe to start with a win we release new episodes every single Wednesday and quick wins

every other Friday remember stay awesome and we'll see you next week