What makes people productive?
What motivates people to be productive?
Why are some people more productive than others?
Are certain personality traits linked to productivity?
How do emotions influence productivity?
Are some people more prone to procrastinate than others?
Are “workaholics” more productive?
Is it ever okay to be unproductive?
What do productive people do differently?
Productivity is a measure of efficiency of a person completing a task. Productivity is a measure of economic performance that compares the amount of goods and services produced (output) with the amount of inputs used to produce those goods and services.
The productivity of a company’s workforce plays a key role in its profitability and competitiveness. It makes sense: Increase productivity levels and you can expect to generate higher profits without adding headcount. That boosts the likelihood of long-term success in competitive markets. So it’s important that business leaders understand how to measure productivity, then use that data to identify and overcome obstacles to making their workforces more productive.
Eliminate Time Wasting Activities by Using the Eisenhower Box: This simple decision matrix will help you take action, organize tasks, and get more done. The great thing about this matrix is that it can be used for broad productivity plans (“How should I spend my time each week?”) and for smaller, daily plans (“What should I do today?”).
Warren Buffett’s “2 List” Strategy: How to Maximize Your Focus and Master Your Priorities: This method comes from the famous investor Warren Buffett and uses a simple 3-step productivity strategy to help you determine your priorities and actions. You may find this method useful for making decisions and getting yourself to commit to doing one thing right away.
The Ivy Lee Method: The Daily Routine Experts Recommend for Peak Productivity: This productivity strategy is straightforward: Do the most important thing first each day. The Ivy Lee Method is a dead simple way to implement this strategy.
The 15-Minute Routine Anthony Trollope Used to Write 40+ Books: There is one common problem with the approach of ranking your priorities and doing the most important thing first, though. After ranking your priorities for the day, if the number one task is a really big project then it can leave you feeling frustrated because it takes a long time to finish. Writer Anthony Trollope, however, developed a solution to this common problem.
Productivity can mean different things in different contexts, especially with the rise of knowledge work and automation. Personal productivity refers to how consistently and efficiently an individual completes tasks or accomplishes goals.
Understanding the different layers of productivity can help you see how your personal productivity at work contributes to your business’s productivity and maybe even how both relate to your country’s productivity.
For countries, productivity measures how well they turn labor and materials (the input) into goods and services (the output, gross domestic product [GDP]). It's a broad measure that reflects trends in policy and technology and indicates economic growth relative to other things happening in the macro-environment. This can ladder to a higher standard of living for the residents of that country.
For businesses, too, productivity measures how well they generate revenue from input, labor, and materials. Business productivity usually refers to productivity as revenue divided by hours worked. For company leaders, an aggregate productivity level isn't likely to provide actionable insights, but it can help them see how they compare against the competition or other leading firms.
Productivity at the company level, revenue relative to employee labor hours in a quarter, can seem far removed from our own activities, which might see results or deliver value in a different timeframe.
Productivity goes up when output increases at a faster rate than inputs or when a company can generate the same output with lower inputs. Here’s an example that shows how this works, exploring the effect of different inputs.
Suppose you own an apple orchard, and you’re looking at ways to increase the productivity of your annual apple-picking operation. Currently, your company’s 50 workers can pick a total of 10,000 large apples per hour by hand, on average. Your hourly labor productivity is therefore 10,000 apples/50 people = 200 apples per hour per picker. Not bad, but there are four options to do better, beyond just pushing people to work harder:
The term “personal productivity” is often used to describe how much individuals can accomplish every day in their personal lives and in the workplace. It reflects a person’s ability to manage their time, energy, and resources effectively to achieve their goals. Improving personal productivity often involves setting priorities, minimizing distractions, and using tools or techniques that help streamline daily tasks.
Workforce productivity (which is what we’re mainly concerned with here) is the aggregate productivity of all individuals in a company’s workforce. It measures how efficiently employees collectively turn inputs—such as time and skills—into valuable outputs for the business. High workforce productivity generally leads to a stronger competitive position in the market.
The aggregate productivity of all companies in an industry or sector can help identify and measure trends, strengths, and weaknesses within that industry, which can inform investment and policy decisions. Sectors with high productivity often drive economic growth and innovation across the broader economy.
This is the collective output of one or more individuals united under a common goal. Team or department productivity focuses on how well a group collaborates and uses resources to achieve shared objectives. Effective communication, clear role definitions, and streamlined processes are key factors that can enhance productivity at this level.
The aggregate productivity of all industries in an economy—nationally or globally—is a critical indicator of economic health and competitiveness on the world stage. Improvements at this level can lead to higher living standards, increased economic output, and greater resilience to economic shocks.
Written by Krishna Murthi, a top business leader with over 25 years of experience in creating productive teams.
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