What Makes Some People More Productive Than Others?

MIT surveyed nearly 20,000 professionals from around the world, with 50% from North America, 21% from Europe, 19% from Asia, and the remainder from Australia, South America, and Africa. They identified methods that make people's productivity stand out.

1. Plan your work based on the importance of tasks, and act with clear goals.

• Revise your daily schedule the night before, highlighting your priorities. Write down your goals next to each item on the calendar.
• Send a detailed agenda to all participants before any meeting.
• When starting a large project, outline preliminary conclusions as soon as possible.
• Before reading any lengthy material, clarify your specific purpose for it.
• Before writing anything of length, create a logically ordered outline to help you proceed step by step.

2. Develop effective techniques to manage information overload and tasks.

• Turn daily routines, like getting dressed or having breakfast, into habits so you don't spend time thinking about them.
• Allocate time in your daily schedule to handle urgent and unexpected events.
• Check your device's screen once an hour instead of every few minutes.
• Skip most messages by looking at the subject and sender.
• Break large projects into smaller parts and reward yourself after completing each part.
• Delegate tasks that do not affect your primary objectives whenever possible.

3. Understand colleagues' needs for brief meetings, responsive communication, and clear direction.

• Limit any meeting to 90 minutes or less, preferably shorter. At the end of each meeting, outline the next steps and assign responsibilities for those steps.
• Respond immediately to messages from people who are important to you.
• To engage the audience, speak based on notes rather than reading a prepared text.
• Establish clear goals and success metrics for any team's work.
• To enhance your team's performance, create processes to prevent future mistakes rather than playing the blame game.