The first business we bought was a Franchise, which turned out to be very valuable because of the internal systems that came with it. One of the resources the chain supplied was to grade your productivity. I was excited about this because we had turned the business around in a short period of time, and we assumed that we would do great.
That did NOT happen! Our final production grade was 50%, and if you remember school grades, that is not a good number. We FAILED! How could we fail when we turned around a distressed business, we were making money, we were busy, the phones were ringing and our calendar was full?
We fell into the same trap that MOST people do: we assumed that if we were busy, we were being efficient and productive. Being busy is EASY! Most business people and employees are busy everyday, but IF we graded them out… I would bet most of us would fail.
Busy work = doing things we like to do, are comfortable doing that are easy, and safe.
I am a sales person and some of my busy work includes: paperwork, organizing my office, handling other workers questions, running errands, dropping items off to clients, water cooler conversations, researching sales, finding leads, and setting up my calendar, reading emails, Facebook, and reading sales training.
I bet some of you would argue with me about my Busy List above and say those things actually are important, and we should be doing them. I would agree… BUT they are NOT the MOST IMPORTANT things we should be doing during work hours!!!
Productive work for sales would be: Going on a sales appointment, calling on new business, strategic meetings with your clients, up selling existing clients, attending networking meetings, being involved with groups/organizations/boards that your ideal customers are a part of, and setting up speaking engagements to business groups.
Notice the difference between Busy work and Productive work? They are both important, but Busy work can be done on off hours or, better yet, hire them out to someone who is Efficient at doing them.
Productive work is SCARY! It is the work YOU MUST do and should fill your day with. If you were honest about how you fill your day, would it be busy or productive?
Here is the litmus test to answer the question: Is what you are doing right now comfortable or uncomfortable? Busy work never scares me, BUT Productive work does!
Do the work that scares you and makes you uncomfortable FIRST (Productive Work) and watch how that changes your paycheck!
Find Your Passion and You Will Find Your Life!