Finding My Business Niche

Finding Your Niche

An international business survey reveals the habits of highly-effective people. How do you rate?

The world seems obsessed with productivity at the moment. It may reflect the fact people have never had to contend with so many distractions. Even before they leave home, many workers feel overwhelmed: emails, Slack messages, WhatsApp, meeting reminders and voicemails. Phones and devices steadily ping with more throughout the day. Then there's the siren song of social media - Instagram, Facebook and Twitter - all designed to incorporate addiction loops to keep you coming back.

So how do people stay focussed and on task in an age of information overload? In an attempt to answer that question, Harvard Business Review surveyed nearly 20,000 readers around the world in 2019.

The three main findings were:

productivity is not linked to longer working hours (in fact, previous researchers have noted productivity declines sharply past 48 hours worked each week); older, more senior professionals reported higher levels of productivity (which may be linked to learning through experience that the key is working smarter, not longer); gender differences were not significant, although women reported higher focus on preparation-related tasks (preparing efficient meeting agendas and reviewing the next day's calendar to look for possible issues); while men had good systems for coping with high volumes of communications.

Researchers at Harvard Business Review scraped data from survey responses to identify routines most commonly referenced by productive people. From this, they compiled a list of effective work habits based around three key areas: maintaining clear objectives; managing information overload; and making communications efficient and responsive.

This is their advice to workers looking to boost their productivity.

Preparation: Revise your upcoming day's schedule the night before to identify priority tasks and note objectives for each appointment; Send detailed meeting agendas beforehand; Before writing anything lengthy, sketch an outline with a logical structure and word count to keep you focussed on moving forward;

Managing distraction Make a conscious effort to limit checking your phone screen to once an hour rather than every few minutes; Delegate tasks, when feasible, that are not key to your main objective; Leave gaps in your schedule to deal with unexpected problems; Scan messages for sender and subject and tackle by priority rather than chronology.

Communicating effectively Limit meetings to a maximum of 90 minutes, but the shorter the better. End each meeting by listing outcomes and next steps; Speakers should present with dot points rather than a prepared script; Respond immediately to communications from those important to you; Focus on learning from mistakes rather than allocating blame.

The big question is: can time spent reading about productivity be productive? Incorporate some of these goal-focussed habits into your day and it can be. Here are a few more to get you on track.

Retrain your brain Distraction can become a habit; a way of avoiding difficult tasks. But the more people give in to a quick email check or Facebook scroll, the shorter their attention span becomes. Another Harvard Business Review piece ( How to overcome your email distraction habit ) looks at how people can retrain their brains to expand their attention spans and become more productive.

Focus on what matters Italian philosopher and economist Vilfredo Pareto came up with the 80/20 principle back in the 1800s and it still influences the business world today. His observation was that 20 per cent of effort is often responsible for 80 per cent of results. His deceptively simple method to boost productivity was to work out what that 20 per cent is and focus on it. Read more on how to apply Pareto's Principle here.

Plan wisely Don't work longer, work smarter. Studies indicate productivity declines rapidly once workers clock up more than 48 hours in a week. Anything over 39 can have an impact on mental health. Be reasonable in what you expect to achieve each day. Try to organise your day so the most challenging tasks are in the morning when you are fresh and focussed. Schedule time throughout the day to check and respond to emails in blocks, rather than checking them compulsively. Like to talk to someone who can help contact Awesome for a Free Business Strategy Review

Please note we do not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This article has been written for general informational purposes only and is not intended to provide, and should not be relied on, for tax, legal or accounting advice. We encourage you to consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisers before engaging in any transaction.