My Productivity Boosting Strategy

image: blacktipit.com

Yesterday I was discussing my marketing strategy with two new friends. They work in the media industry as entrepreneurs. One runs her own TV shows, radio programs and has a newspaper column. The other runs an online newspaper and digital marketing outfit. We are all participants at the Bloomberg Media Initiative Africa 6 months training program which is concluding this month (pre-graduation party is tomorrow). Over those six months, they've all seen me more as a geek who knows too much about the finance world. So the two were surprised yesterday to find that I have three published books on Amazon with fairly good monthly sales. It was like, "Dude, you know and do too much."

Today, I will be sharing with you how I manage to do so much and keep learning new things. My productivity boosting strategy. And it is: I reduce waste. 

1. I don't plan my day or have some excellent way to manage each day. I mostly flow with happenings in the day. I focus a lot more on my mood. I try at all times to be in a good mood, 'cos it makes me very creative and churn out a lot of work.

2. I don't overthink things. In fact, I don't think about none critical things. I ask myself, imperceptibly, "Does this directly affect me or my family?", "Does this affect my work?" and "Is there an opportunity I can gain from in it?" And if the answers to all those three questions are "No". I wipe my mind clean of all thoughts about it. I only allocate my mind space to things I consider very important. That's why I dread social events where I have to tag along in discussing things that have no direct benefit to me. I know I am a hopeless individualist but I find that it suits me well.

3. I do the most important things first. That is why getting me on a phone can be very difficult. Occasionally, I do things that are way more important than phone calls, even phone calls that want to give me money. The catch most people ignore is that no one gives you free money. When someone calls and complains that am I now too rich that I don't pick business calls that will fetch me money, I feel like asking -- is the money free? And not now that I know very well that when people value your service and expertise, they will call you and sms you and email you and repeat all three till you respond. So I don't think I lose much by not picking calls as often as people expect. And on the flip side, I gain a lot. I gain a lot of unbroken concentration time that I use to generate all those amazing articles and webinars and contents that attract the business people in the first place. So it's partly a recursion problem. 

In conclusion, I get a lot from my day by spending more time on creating tangible value than marketing and talking.