Being busy is something lots of people aspire to be these days. How often do you answer the question “How are you” with “Busy”? Being busy means that you do not have time to accept dinner or movie invitations because you have something else to do. For example, controlling the food costs of your business.
However, being busy often means that you work overtime and have the illusion that you have less time than you actually have. This can prevent you from finishing your tasks and accepting the challenge of longer or extended tasks. Somehow, these days being busy means being successful, for some people. But, you are not going to be successful if you are busy, you are going to be successful if you are productive.
Yes, productivity and busyness are different, but most people think that they are the same, says Jennifer Manson, an essay writer at a professional writer service. I have come to realize the same after some years full of busyness and unaccomplished tasks. Here are some ways that can help you be more productive and, thus, more successful.
• Prioritize your tasks – If we are fully honest with ourselves, we could admit that there will always be something that needs to be done.
• Organize your calendar – You are probably organizing everything you need to do in your calendar. And if you are not, you should start tracking your meetings and deadlines to improve your productivity.
• Identify the true values of each priority – Sometimes, when there is too much on our plates, everything can feel both urgent and important. The feeling of needing to do everything RIGHT NOW can become incredibly stressful.
• Change your perspective on busyness – People often feel some kind of pride when they say they are busy. The downside is that this busyness makes us think that some activities are not productive and helpful at all. And the fact is, they are among the most productive and helpful of all.
Let’s think about the lunch break. Most people skip it, because they do not have time, and even delay it to the point that it becomes dinner. But breaks are useful because they help you relax and they have a positive effect on your mental well-being, performance, and productivity.
Taking a proper break can give you a fresh perspective on your tasks, thus improving your creativity too. This means that you can find new solutions to problems and manage to accomplish all your tasks until the deadline.
What Accomplished People Do Differently
The most common trait you will consistently observe in accomplished people is an obsession with completion. Once a project falls into their horizon, they crave, almost compulsively, to finish it. If they’re organized, this might happen in scheduled chunks. If they’re not “like many” this might happen in all-nighters. But they get it done. Fast and consistently.
It’s this constant stream of finishing that begins, over time, to unlock more and more interesting opportunities and eventually leads to their big scores.
If you are productive without harbouring this intense desire for completion, you will end up just being busy. We all know the feeling. You work all day off of your to-do list. Everything is organized. Everything is scheduled. Yet, still, months pass with no important projects getting accomplished.
If you’re like most people, you believe you’re being productive when you create output, are busy, or reach a goal. But what if those outputs aren’t valuable? Pursuing the wrong metrics will make you unproductive! The advice, “start with goals” when planning an effort is wrong. We need to start with value, then proceed to goals. Ask yourself: What benefits (value) do your various work activities produce, really? One major problem is that we confuse value with volume metrics. In the modern workplace, we have a perverse tendency to equate volumes of activity with accomplishments.
Doctors have traditionally measured their performance according to the number of patients visits they handled rather than how often they arrived at the correct diagnosis. Lawyers bill clients based on how many hours they work, regardless of whether they’re dispensing good counsel. Sales people fixate on revenues, regardless of whether their products end up benefitting customers. The chart below provides more examples of how people confuse reaching some internal goal with pursuing value-metrics.
To shift from a volume view to a value perspective, ask yourself these questions:
- What are the key productivity metrics I use in my job? (Hint: where in the table below do you fall, left or right column?)
- What value are you truly creating in your job today?
- What new and additional value do you think you can create in your job?
How would you like to execute all your tasks for each day, and do that every day? Sounds great, right? Sure, with the right steps taken, you can get that done easily. Accomplishing all your tasks for the day will help you have a great day, bring you closer to the ultimate achievement you’re set for, and give you satisfaction. It’ll also contribute hugely to your overall success. After all, that’s what success is all about — accomplishing all your set goals and meeting your targets.
If you fancy the feeling of being successful and would like to go through each day achieving your goals, here’s how to pull that off in 7 simple steps:
- Write Out a Basic Plan for the Day: Write out a basic plan, showing all the important things you want to do for the day. You can do this using a computer, a mobile device, or going traditional with a real pen and paper. It involves evaluating and prioritizing the day’s activities in the order of their rewards and benefits to you. You’d have to do this before you start your day.
- Set Time for each Task: After writing out a basic plan for your day, allot time to each activity. Possibly, indicate when to start the activity and when to end it. Visualize how much you hope to accomplish the task within the stipulated time frame, and of course, keep it SMART.
- Follow Through Meticulously: It’s not just enough to write out a plan and allot time to the activities; you actually have to follow through strictly if you want to achieve results. This entails getting up to do what you ought to do when it’s time to do it.
- Give Total Attention to the Task at Hand: It’s easy to get distracted in the midst of the activities and happenings around you during the day, but you have to make up your mind not to be distracted. Staying focused is important for the accomplishment of your tasks.
- Give Precedence to those Activities that Produce Quality Results: To have the best results, you’d have to concentrate on the most important activities and give them your best shot. By important activities, I mean those activities that will help you most in achieving or getting close to your ultimate goal.
- Be Sensitive to the Schedule. Respect the Time: Not only should you be sensitive to the scheduling and timing of your day; you should also treat other people’s time with respect. Don’t keep people waiting gratuitously. They might have gotten at least one useful thing done while waiting and doing nothing.
- Go Back to Your List of Basic Plans and Evaluate: This comes at the end of the day. Write out a list of the things you’ve done since you woke up. This will help you measure your progress and set new goals. It’ll also help you redirect your focus on the tasks that need to get done.
Accomplishing all your tasks for each day is doable and it comes with a great feeling. It’s also important because meeting your daily goals contributes immensely to your overall success and to the achievement of your ultimate goal. When you want to have a great day, apply the productivity hacks above and you’ll be set to getting that done, stress-free.
To Conclude – Busyness has become like a badge people are using with honor. But there is no link between being busy and being successful and productive.
Time is something we cannot recover once we have lost it. And people invest a lot of time in tasks that are neither important nor urgent. If you have not heard about the Eisenhower Matrix, you can use it to prioritize your tasks soon. There are four categories of tasks: urgent and important, urgent and not important, not urgent and important and neither urgent nor important. Try to organize your tasks according to this matrix and you will see that you handle a lot of them that are not so urgent and not so important. You should first take care of the most urgent and important of them and try to delegate the others. Productivity means handling the right tasks in a given amount of time, so prioritization is an important part of being productive.
Resources:
- Article on How To Go From Busy to Accomplished
- Article on Ways to Stay Involved In College Life
- Article on Steps to Stop Being Busy and Start Being Productive
- Ted Talk on The Real Reason We’re All So Busy and What to Do About It
- Video on How to Stop Being so Busy
“Productivity isn’t about being a workhorse. Keeping busy or burning the midnight oil… It’s more about priorities, planning and fiercely protecting your time.” – Gary Keller
Update on Skill Development & Training
In the new cohort (2022-23) supported by MSDF and Capgemini, 2203 scholars are in the Enguru English program.
In the current 3rd year cohort supported by MSDF, 566 scholars are in the advanced Hi touch English program by eAge tutors and 715 scholars have onboarded for the technical skilling program by Coursera.
The Pharma and the Law scholars have started the Enguru English program in October 2022
FLY (Finding the Leader in You) Program in partnership with CMI and IIT-Gandhinagar
For the financial year 2022-23, the new batch of the FLY program started on May 18th. The 12-day workshop was conducted for 2nd year scholars with a batch of 34 students. This workshop is conducted by CMI – Competitive Mindset Institute Inc and is designed to teach noncognitive skills for the personality and character development of students. Currently, the 5th batch is going on.
Medical Webinar – A webinar on Robotics in Surgery – is it a fancy technology or a patient cantered advancement will be conducted on 13th November for all medical scholars
Pharma Webinar – A Career guidance session was conducted for all BPharm scholars by Biocon Academy. There were 113 participants.
Civil Service session – A session on Civil services – Making dream a reality! was conducted for all UPSC aspirants on 16th October. The session was presented by 3 FFE Alumni, who walked the scholars through their journey, motivation, strategy, & insights into opportunities & scope discussed. There were 238 participants.
LinkedIn Coach Mentor Mentee session – 100 final years scholars have onboarded for the LinkedIn session that involves a one-to-one mentor mentee session with LinkedIn employees.
Communication Course – A 10-week program on Communication skills started for 2nd-year Engineering scholars. This is conducted by CMI and MBF that includes a fusion of Mentor led sessions with lab and self-paced learning is delivered to scholars, with weekly assignments and activities given. 120 scholars are participating in the program right now.
Wadhwani Job-Ready program – This is a 3 months Job ready program conducted for 50 4th-year scholars and 50 2nd-year scholars on Employability skills and Corporate workforce readiness.
Unacademy Shikshodaya Program – 16 female scholars selected for the PG entrance coaching program by Shikshodaya. This is a year-long program.
LinkedIn Coach webinar – A session was conducted for 90 4th year Engineering scholars on LinkedIn profile building by 2 top coaches of LinkedIn
Machine Learning session – Amazon conducted a ML session on the topic – “Driving Innovations with ML” for Engineering scholars.The session was presented by the Vice President of Machine Learning, Amazon India and there were 511 participants.
Placement update
From the 2021-22 graduating batch of 1256 Engineering students (graduated in June 2022), 95% (1191) are placed; 1041 have secured jobs and 150 have opted for higher studies. The remaining 65 students are looking out for jobs.
From the 2022-23 graduating cohort, out of the 1455 Engineering students (current final year),624 are placed; 467 students have secured jobs and 157 opting for Higher studies. The remaining are attending campus/ off-campus recruitment.
FFE is thankful to its corporate partners Geberit Plumbing Technology India Private Limited, Tavant Technologies, Linde India, O9 Solutions, and Altimetrik India Pvt. Capgemini Technology Services India Limited, KPMG Assurance, and Consulting Services LLP, Tesco, Trane Technologies, Tavant Technologies, Ingersoll Rand, Thomson Reuters, and Thoughtworks for offering Placement opportunities to FFE’s batch of 2019-20, 2020-21 & 2021-22.
