The Common Causes of Productivity Setbacks and How to Eliminate Them

What is a productivity setback? They are the tasks that limit and slow down your ability to execute a process. An excellent way to get more things done and increase your effectiveness is simply to prevent any productivity setbacks. If something that normally takes several hours could be finished in an hour, wouldn’t you want to know how? Here are some of the common causes and the solutions to eliminate productivity setbacks:

Working on a Team
Being part of a team is inevitable, especially if you are in business. Waiting on team members to finish work that you need can bring productivity to a very slow pace. If a crucial team member is not completing their part fast enough, the whole team will get stuck.

Solution: Often people get held up because they are combining two separate phases. Most tasks come from two phases, an idea-generation phase and a refining phase. People can easily get stuck in the middle of both. Ease the burden by offering the team member if they would like some feedback or if they want recommendations/advice. Sometimes people hesitate to ask advice for fear of looking incompetent. When you offer, it can open communication to a faster solution.

Difficult or Unpleasant Tasks
Of course, if you have to do something that you dislike or frustrate you, it will decrease productivity. Mainly because you procrastinate and put it off until you have no choice but to do it. Even if the task takes little time, you will waste more time avoiding it.

Solution: Build momentum by starting on the simplest part of the task. Something that you can do instantly, a rule of thumb is if you can do it in less than 5 minutes then its something you can do that instant. Once you start off doing the easiest and quickest parts then your momentum can push you through the difficult areas.

Perfectionism
You can nit-pick and fuss over the smallest of details forever. The truth is even if you spend endless amounts of time to try to make something absolutely perfect, it really won’t make that much of a difference. Not being able to say something is “good enough” will cause a productivity setback.

Solution: Practice the Pareto Principle: The Pareto principle is the 80-20 rule, which states that 80% of the value of a task comes from 20% of the effort. Focus your energy on that critical 20%, and don’t over tweak the non-critical 80%. This will take some time and being honest with yourself. You know when a task is done, but keep tweaking it, be honest with your self and acknowledge that it’s done.

Waiting for Information
Almost everyone has experienced waiting for an a simple email that provides us with crucial information to move forward. Usually, this occurs when it’s from person who generally takes more than a day to respond to your email.

Solution: When you request information, you can create an earlier deadline from the person you request from. You can double the time. For example, it’s the 1st of the month, if you need something on the 15th, tell the person your deadline is the 10th. They wouldn’t know the difference and if they are usually late then it really will help both parties.

Reinventing the Wheel
Often you will try to re-create something from scratch that has already been created or in use. For example, creating a spreadsheet for a project when there are already templates pre-made that have been in use and proven to work. If something works already, there is no need to start over to create the same exact thing.

Solution: The main culprit of constantly reinventing the wheel is not being aware of what has already been created and ready for use. Create a database or a stockpile of templates, online tools or reference documents that are within reach (easy access and constantly near you). When you need something that already has been created - just use it! Simple.

Lack of Anticipation
Things don’t always go as smoothly as planned, there will always be unexpected things that pop up. If you fail to see the different outcomes of a situation or decisions then you cannot be prepared to deal with the issue effectively. Instead, the lack of anticipation will cause you to fall far behind.

Solution: Play devil’s advocate. Identify all the variables and all the potential bad outcomes. Visualize what you can do to prepare for those problematic outcomes. Essentially have a plan B or a another path to take incase the first one becomes disastrous.

Not Allowing for flexible time
Scheduling yourself exactly to the minute or even to the nearest 30 minutes will certainly cause a set back. As much as you would like to do things right after the other, it won’t happen. Even machines and computers have technical difficulties from time to time.

Solution: Learn to keep track and quantify your time. You might think that something takes 30 mins but really takes 45 mins. A work log or a note book should be utilized to write down (in detail) the common routines that you go through monthly, weekly and daily. You will be surprised to see how long certain things really take. From there you can create a better schedule with flexibility that allows for ample time.