The article explains:
Improving personal effectiveness is something that many people dream about, and something that a select group of people manage. For the rest, it is a sad fate: chronic fatigue, an unwillingness to do anything, and, of course, holy procrastination. In fact, to join the first group and feel that you are on a horse is much easier than it seems.
It's going to sound banal, but the main thing on the road to personal effectiveness is to fight laziness. And it starts with a small step - to take a notebook and a pen. You must agree that even the most "slothful" lazy person in the world is capable of it. What to do next, and how to improve personal efficiency, you learn from our material.
Most of us can not immediately give an answer to the question of what personal efficiency of a person. There is no clear definition of what it means, which makes it difficult to identify the area in which it applies.
So before we talk about personal effectiveness, let us first understand what the term means.
First and foremost, it refers to a person's ability to perform their tasks with focus, quickly and well. Often, however, the following factors can hinder the achievement of the end result:
Thus, we can conclude that each person's personal effectiveness is nothing more than absolute concentration on a task for its qualitative accomplishment. In psychology, this topic is particularly relevant now, because in today's world saturated with different information, it can be difficult to choose priorities and identify the main thing that we really need.
It is commonly believed that success can be achieved only through sheer effort. Hard and painstaking work is the reason for a person's triumph. In reality, none of us has supernatural powers, and we can do in a day only as much as our abilities allow.
Practice shows that people who work all day long are not always able to boast of successes in their professional fields or a high level of income derived from such active work. But even so, their fatigue is off the charts, and what personal efficiency is there to talk about? Others, on the other hand, spend the standard eight hours a day on their work, achieve lavish results and become high-profile executives or start their own successful business.
Based on these two different situations, we have tried to highlight the secret components of success:
Summarizing everything, we conclude: good luck does not always accompany success, because it simply may not be. So a person determines its own way to achieve the goal. How to do it? Do not stop on the achieved, be able to focus on the main thing, follow strictly chosen direction. Use various techniques to improve personal effectiveness, so that you can achieve success on your own.
The next step is to replenish your energy:
Only buy the things you really need. Things that are exceptionally useful. When you buy something, you also make a commitment. For example, a modern computer mouse, developed by the largest manufacturing company, you certainly need a mouse pad and powerful batteries. The cost of the latter is quite high, so it is more advantageous to buy a battery, which will require a charger.
But what about rarities? A clock that blends in perfectly with the room, but needs winding every day and needs to be replaced regularly, can be an inconvenience. And if it needs serious repair, not every workshop will be able to help. It's an antique watch, after all.
Another example is the use of wireless headphones. Handy thing, but unfortunately, with its own drawbacks. In particular, they stop working exactly when you need them most. So it is a good idea to have a set of spare ones. And always remember to take both with you. Plus, the device needs to be charged daily.
So before you buy something, think hard about whether it's worth it or not. Do you really need it or is it just a whim that will get in the way of your personal effectiveness?
All of your actions should be guided by a plan. This doesn't mean you have to plan out your entire day minute by minute, but you should be able to plan a few steps ahead.
Such a technique is considered the most effective way to improve personal effectiveness. Here's why.
A lot of people tend to think that a personal efficiency technique is to dedicate your mornings to things that are important to you rather than those that are urgent. This refers to some ideas or ideas that a person cannot implement in any way, postponing their implementation because of the routine fulfillment of their obligations.
Some have succeeded precisely because at their peak (i.e. in the morning) they did exactly what they themselves needed to do, rather than rushing off to solve urgent tasks for the benefit of others.
On the one hand, this is quite a clever approach. After all, by delaying what we would like to do, we risk missing out on the opportunity altogether.
On the other hand, better results can be achieved by saving what we want for the end of the day. In the evening, as a rule, a person's energy reserves are severely depleted, and it seems that there is no energy left for anything else. But we all have hidden reserves in our bodies. Try doing something fun and energising and you'll be surprised how quickly your energy level and energy level will return.
Pretty much anyone should focus on boosting their personal effectiveness, but the following categories need it first:
Freelancers find it more difficult to resist distractions than office workers. This is because the freelancer works from home, without the constraints imposed by management. His activities are carried out on the vast expanse of the internet, where he writes articles, develops designs for websites, keeps accounts, and so on.
Constant contact with information on the web often slows down the pace of work, and a task that takes no more than 20 minutes to complete, a freelancer does an hour or longer.
And reducing the time per task logically leads to an increase in the number of tasks, and hence an increase in earnings. Plus, getting the tasks done quickly frees up more time for interesting activities and relaxation. This is why freelancers are so necessary to put into practice methods to improve personal efficiency.
Here we are talking not only about business owners, but also about people in senior management positions in large companies and corporations. They have a lot of commitments and a lot of responsibility for making important decisions.
They do not have a lot of free time, but they can still perform their duties and live life to the fullest by training their personal effectiveness.
We do not only use this definition for students at universities and technical colleges, but also for those who are involved in learning activities such as courses, advanced training, etc. In the learning process, it is important to be able to extract the essentials from the large amount of information.
Students need to enhance their personal effectiveness in order to be able to use what they have learned to successfully achieve the results they want.
Those who use their full potential to achieve their goals excel not only in their career but also in their everyday life. They use their leisure time for spiritual and emotional development, while low performers waste it on useless tasks.
In many companies it is common practice to keep a time sheet, which makes it possible to evaluate the efficiency of each employee. Anyone can do the same for personal reasons, so that they can clearly visualise their level of productivity. Keep a notebook or notebook where you can write down everything you have accomplished during the day. An important rule is to be completely honest.
You should indicate the time that was actually spent on a task. Because, more often than not, it goes like this:
From this you can see that it was actually less than two hours of work. And if you get into the habit of regularly mapping your activities in this way, you will realise that you are wasting quite a lot of energy and time on tasks that are not contributing to your main objective. Collecting and analysing such data will allow you to develop a quality methodology for improving your personal effectiveness.
Reliable conclusions can be drawn by keeping timekeeping records for at least one month. In this way, you can measure as accurately as possible the amount of time you spend on the activities you undertake each day. Why such a period?
Because in a day you may spend only a few minutes browsing your social media feed, taking a coffee break etc., and this time is not significant. But once you've spent 30 days or more, you'll see that it's not minutes, it's hours, and those are the same periods of inefficient use of your resources.
When working on personal effectiveness you must learn to weed out unnecessary tasks. If you realise that certain activities are not contributing to your growth, development, wealth and benefits, think about whether it is important to spend a lot of time on them or not.
All tasks can be classified into two categories: urgent and current (daily). The latter includes everything we do all the time, such as cleaning the house, going to the shop to buy groceries, doing the laundry etc.
These seemingly important activities do not really have any real value and do not contribute to personal effectiveness. Although it is certainly necessary to do them. But not in the first place, but only after you have dealt with more important and urgent matters.
It's not just vigorous activity that makes you more efficient as a person, but also your periods of rest. But it has to be the right one. If you spend your personal time doing things that do not bring you relaxation, then they are not suitable for you. The main purpose of free time is to restore the body's energy reserves, strength, physiological and psychological tonus.
For example, you go to the gym, and you perceive every workout as a tedious, hard chore. How satisfying can that be? Or let's say you spend time with friends, holding the view that social networking is useful, when what you really want is a soft couch and a favourite book.
Do you enjoy socialising? Anything you do during your periods of rest should help to release negativity and tension, and by no means the other way around.
It only takes 21 days for a person to adjust to the changes in their life. Set yourself a goal for each day, and stick to your plan no matter what. For example, set aside a half hour in the morning to exercise, or allow yourself no more than 15 minutes to use the internet for recreational purposes.
By the end of the month, you'll feel that your actions become automatic, and you don't need to put much effort into making yourself do them. And if you happen to break your routine, start again.
Of course, self-education is useful. But if you want to achieve better results, it's time to enlist the help of a professional. A coaching session, or a personal consultation with a coach, will help you to identify your motivation and set clear goals.
In addition, a specialist will take into account your personality traits, so he or she can create a programme that suits you.
Sometimes just one conversation with someone can inspire you to do great things or give you the energy you need. Other times, it's just one conversation that makes you feel uncomfortable and burdensome. You regularly have to hear them complain about the imperfection of the world, rebuke those around them and lament their failures. Not only does this sound depressing, but it also has a negative effect on you: you may unwittingly succumb to a pessimistic mood.
Of course, you can't cut out unproductive people completely, especially if they're related to you. You can only reduce the amount of time you spend communicating and focus on communicating with those who can really inspire and cheer you up.
In an information overloaded world, it is becoming increasingly difficult to grasp what could be truly important. Too many people soak up everything they see on the internet, and this often affects their day-to-day life.
Some people get really addicted. A person is constantly distracted from doing important things just to look at a feed once or twice. It also happens that after spending time on social media, the psychological state of the individual deteriorates. They become anxious, restless and disorderly. In particularly severe cases, even depression is possible.
If you find yourself doing any of these things, think about the wisdom of getting involved. Instead, choose ways that can not only lift your spirits, but also motivate you to do new things.
Everyone has problems. Even successful and organic individuals have bad situations that require action to correct them. If your actions don't follow a plan from the outset, you will find it more difficult to deal with problems that arise.
You will have to spend a lot of energy on unproductive attempts to just get rid of it, while what is really needed is a clear goal. You need to be guided by reason, not emotion, first and foremost and determine a sequence of actions that will lead to an improvement in the situation.
To solve the problem, you must overcome your fear of it. This saves you the time of searching for the best way to fix it. And there is certainly no point in getting worked up over a minor issue like a blown light bulb or slow internet speed.
Instead of tearing your hair out and asking the universe for favours, just take action. It's like a headache - feel sick, take a pill and forget about it.
It is a different matter if the same problem occurs regularly. In this case, you need to find out exactly what is causing it. It will probably take time and a lot of analysis, but the sooner you do, the sooner you will be rid of it.
One of the ways to increase the personal effectiveness of employees is for managers to encourage their subordinates for achievements in their professional area. Practice shows that fines and reprimands have the opposite effect, and employee productivity declines.
You can encourage yourself, only let the reward be not only pleasant, but also useful. In particular, if you praise yourself with sweets now, you will soon scold yourself for gaining pounds.
It takes a lot of time to make a plan to improve personal effectiveness, and even more time to get used to it and strictly follow it. But hard work is always rewarding and, if you get involved and work on yourself, you'll soon see positive changes in your life.
For those who are seriously interested in the topic at hand, we recommend reading the following informative books:
All these books have one thing in common: the first action you must start working on yourself. It's identifying your main tasks, prioritising them, and calculating the time required to complete them. Each author shares his or her own experiences and gives advice on how to approach things.
Being methodical and meticulous is a good habit, but not always and not in everything. If you become fixated on your tasks, paying too much attention to the small stuff, you will shorten your time to complete them. Think about it - is there any point in writing down in your notebook an action that you can do in five minutes? It's quicker and easier to complete it and switch to another activity that requires more of your time and effort.
This is the reverse of the previous mistake. For example, you have set yourself an ambitious task that you will work on for days, if not weeks. You complete the first phase of the task and move on to other things. After a while, you return to the main task and struggle to figure out where to start the second phase of work.
It would have been easier if you had initially fixed yourself not a general objective, but sequential steps that you would have carried out according to a thought-out plan. It would also help to meet the deadlines for the work, as all the steps have been thought out in advance.
Think about which goal setting motivates you better: learning French or enrolling in a French course at a language school? The first one is an abstract goal that you can work towards for many years. The second one is more concrete because you have to sign up for a course at a fixed time, not when it suits you.
You can take the advice of Brian Tracy, author of "Eat a Frog! 21 ways to learn to be on time" and start your day paying attention to the most important and urgent issues. Or, conversely, start by doing the chores first, and then move on to the big tasks. Whichever direction you choose, stick to it.
Don't set your own expectations for yourself. Who better than you to know how much work you can accomplish in a day without compromising your health and personal time? Don't plan for more tasks than you can manage. Otherwise you'll either stress yourself out trying to do everything or you'll get the job done wrong.
Also, do not schedule your time by the minute, always take into account the so-called 'operating period' when unplanned events occur or other urgent work appears.
In conclusion, I would like to say that a high level of personal efficiency is not only a guarantee of success in the professional field, but also in everyday life. We all constantly have to perform certain tasks, spending a certain amount of time and energy on them. The better we do it, the more we make life easier for ourselves.
Interaction in society is not possible without new information knowledge. The question is which of them are useful for us and which are not. The ability to abstract from the flow of unnecessary information allows a person to concentrate on the essential, to solve those issues that are important to him, to perform actions of value.
Thus, it can be said that the technology for improving personal efficiency lies in correctly setting priorities, focusing on specific tasks and correctly allocating one's resources.