Productivity

How do you know you have had a productive day?  What benchmarks do you use?  Is it a to do list?

Productivity is much more than just ticking off projects and assignments.  Yes, it's one element, but to really "be" productive you have to have a sense of accomplishment despite the obstacles in front of you.

Take house projects.  I have always said that any house project:

• has at least a one hundred dollar investment (at least)
• has a minimum of three trips to the hardware store with one of them being to the local Ace Hardware because the big box stores don't have the item you need (and you don't need 100 of them in a package)
• purchase of one new special tool
• usually turns into a bigger project because once you start it's like opening Pandora's box and
• takes 4 times as long to complete as you initially planned. 
  

Tell me I'm wrong.

There are times when the productivity goal does not get achieved the way we initially intended.  No, we were not able to fix that leaky faucet, but you did learn where your water turn off valve is in the basement because the one under the sink doesn't work.  You also learned that sometimes if you can't open something by turning it to the left (lefty loosy, righty tighty) that turning it to the right a little first might help loosen the fitting.  And you learned that a little water can do a lot of damage and you won't wait to fix another leaky anything!

So were you productive even though you have to start on that faucet again tomorrow?  Certainly because the intangible knowledge that you gained was you benchmark in productivity. 

To your organizational success!

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