I’m a huge fan of Tim Ferriss. He blogs about personal productivity and actionable metrics and served as the inspiration for this post.

Being productive can help a person make more money, advance in his or her career quicker, finish projects sooner, and even have more time to spend with the family. However, it seems few people actively think about and take action to improve their productivity. This post will hopefully change that.

Self-Discipline

Humans, by nature, have very poor self-discipline. Steve Pavlina, a very successful and influential personal development blogger and author, wrote in 2005 that the average office worker spends 37% of their time in idle socializing, not to mention other vices that chew up more than 50% of work time with unproductive non-work. In other words, during a 40-hour workweek, you actually work only less than 20 hours. If you’re self-employed or a commission based worker, this could directly result in tens of thousands of lost dollars per year.

Productive Environment

Rather than relying on self-discipline, put yourself in an environment conducive to extreme productivity. For me, a productive environment is generally one that is/has: bright lighting, some background noise, people around me (but not trying to talk to me), allows me to listen to music, and at a different location than my home. If my project doesn’t require me to use the internet, then the most productive environment for me is one that doesn’t have internet access. What is your environment like?

Monitoring

I came across RescueTime more than a year ago when I was looking to audit my productivity. Not only does RescueTime tell you were you could be more efficient and productive, but it also compares your data with others and even helps you to be a better worker through goal-setting. It’s helped me objectively analyze where I was being inefficient and be a much more productive worker.

Increase Your Productivity

If you’d like to increase your productivity, here are proven techniques that I use – they just might help you too.
1.    Put yourself in the right environment
2.    Monitor and audit your performance
3.    Set (and keep) deadlines
4.    Break large projects into smaller tasks
5.    Reward yourself at key milestones
6.    Understand that setbacks happen
7.    Stay positive by thinking long-term

Further Reading

Friend and fellow blogger Regis Hadiaris often writes on personal productivity on his blog Dot Connector. If this post interests you, be sure to subscribe to his RSS feed and follow him on Twitter as well.

# # #

The Wall Street Journal posted (and published in the print edition) a great article online, titled “So, You Want to Be an Entrepreneur.”

The article talks about how many people are contemplating striking out on their own — whether they’re frustrated job seekers or people who are already employed but getting antsy about their company’s prospects. Then, it proposes 10 questions to ask to see whether you’re up for the challenge of entrepreneurship.

Also, on the topic of career development, you should check out my other blog, Career Fire.

Here’s a great lecture by Tim Ferriss, author of the “Four Hour Workweek” and so much more. “How and Why to Be Unreasonable” is about case studies of how to think big and test assumptions to accomplish the impossible, whether launching a #1 bestselling product, setting a world record, or changing the world.

Via Dot Connector.

I posted this over at Career Fire, but it’s also relevant to my personal life as well, so am posting it here too, with a little more information.

Fortune just released the annual 100 Best Companies to Work for list and there are some noticable differences, including the dethroning of #1.

Some observations:

• Microsoft and Quicken Loans (see the Quicken Loans blog), both previous employers of mine, are, yet again, in the top 100. Check out a post on Quicken Loans.
• Google is no longer #1. Congratulations NetApp. I bet your number of applicants just shot through the roof.
• Many college students, based on a non-probabilistic convenience sample said they never even considered apply to a company based on this list. These companies are great to work for, so apply to them!