how to get more done

How To Increase Productivity By Keeping Score

February 14, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

More Productive

In a competition outside of business, whether that be a sporting event or the speech and debate team, keeping score gives people something to be competitive about. A football team has the ball, they are at the 10 yard line of the opposing team, they are down by four points, and there is only a minute left in the game. The football players probably try a little harder during that play versus a play on the 50 yard line with a minute to go.

The reason both football teams try a little harder when the football is at the 10 yard line is because the game is too close to call. We always want to be on top. We want to be a player on the winning football team. A 24-22 win and a 60-0 win are both wins. We like the ability to have a high score, or at least a score higher than the opponent.

Keeping score is a motivational factor that makes you push at the end. The runner in 6th place picks it up on the final lap to catch up to the person in 5th place. The 6th place finisher does not get to score a point for the team, but the 5th place finisher gets to score a point for their team. The need to get that extra point (and in numerous cases, the medal), will give the person in 6th place more motivation to catch up to and outrun the person in 5th place. The need for 1 point increase productivity, and in this example, leads to a much better time for the race.

Football players try a little harder when the game is at stake. Runners push it on the last lap in order to get more points for their teams. A great way for entrepreneurs, business people, and anyone else to be productive is by keeping score. Although you may not have a runner in front of you who is currently in 5th place, you have your goals. What are you trying to accomplish? Do you want to follow a certain amount of people on Pinterest, get a certain number of followers on Twitter, or do something else?

I decided to start off February by keeping score. The results have been incredible. Here’s what was on my scorecard:

Write 20 blog posts
Schedule 10 days of tweets
Write KeyNotes for 12 videos
Complete and finalize 8 videos
Schedule 10 days of posts on Google+
Write down ideas for 20 Vines
Post 5 Vines

That’s a length scorecard, but I was able to accomplish everything there…in just a week. I tallied my way from 1 to 20 blog posts, and I tallied my way through all of my other goals as well. Keeping score gave me a sense of urgency. Since I started this particular scorecard on a Thursday, the following Wednesday was like my 4th quarter. I had to get everything left on the scorecard accomplished in two days. I did a lot of work prior to those final two days, but I also did a lot of additional work prior to that 4th quarter. We know from sporting events how challenging it is to pull off the comeback from 28-0 in the 4th quarter. Instead of getting in that hole, I decided to do my work consistently. Then, I kicked it in on the last two days just like runners do on the final lap.

There are two lessons we need to learn from this. The first one is that keeping score has the potential to dramatically increase your productivity and giving you the sense of urgency you need to succeed. Success does not happen if you stay in the comfort zone forever. The second lesson we can learn from this is that there are a lot of things we can learn from sports.

5 Reasons To Stick With A Goal

February 11, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

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Some goals are more challenging than others, and when the workload comes in, we question our goals at the moment. This results in too many people quitting at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Some bloggers are publishing one blog post every day. Being that consistent requires a big investment in time, and then the quality of the content also has to go into consideration.

Some goals are not worth sticking with while other goals couldn’t become more important than they already are. Some goals are made to cut loose while others are made to be stuck with. These are the 5 reasons that you should stick with a goal. If you have most of these reasons to stick with one of your goals, stick with it. If you have one or none of these reasons to stick with a goal, you should consider dropping it. However, you should strategically drop that goal versus dropping it at the moment.

The amount of work you put into a goal. The further you have gone in the dip, the less likely you should be to give up on a goal. You don’t want to become well-known in your niche and decide that’s when you are going to give in. It takes a lot of time to get noticed, and giving up after you put in a lot of work is not the right path to take.
You enjoy the work. Fitness freaks enjoy doing workouts. Top bloggers enjoy writing books. Surfers enjoy riding on the waves. Enjoying the work that you do and to go even further, loving the work that you do will allow you to be more productive. If you love what you do, don’t stop.
How huge the impact is. What are going to be the rewards of doing the workout every day? If it results in you getting a lot stronger, then the workout was well worth it. If a blogger’s book results in that person becoming a bestselling author with a stronger presence, then the work it took to write the book was well worth it.
How much you want to accomplish the goal. If you “sort of” want to accomplish the goal, that is not the goal for you. The goals that you pursue need to be the ones that you have a passion for and want to accomplish them as soon as possible.
Accomplishing this goal will help you accomplish other goals as well. This part should not be the final decision, but choosing the goals that lead into your other goals is very helpful. A blogger’s goal may be to get more traffic to his or her blog. The blogger can build a following on a social network and use that social network to increase blog traffic. If one of the blogger’s goals is to grow a powerful social media following, then that goal helps out towards accomplishing another goal which is to get more blog traffic.

Not all goals are worth sticking with. Some goals will be a lot of fun to work on while others goals will not be as fun (those are the ones you drop). These are the best reasons to stick with a goal. If you don’t have a reason to stick with a goal, that goal is not worth sticking with.

The Difference Between Being Busy And Being Productive

January 8, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

Just because someone is busy does not mean that person is being productive. Being busy and being productive are two things that many people get mixed up. You can be busy but unproductive. You could also be busy and productive at the same time.

Being busy means being occupied with a task. The task may be to look through your email, respond to clients’ emails, or writing a blog post. However, not all tasks are productive. In order to identify which tasks are productive, you need to ask yourself what your main goals are. After you ask yourself what your main goals are, ask yourself how the task at hand lines up with your main goals.

Checking your inbox most likely has nothing to do with recording a video for YouTube. Checking the inbox makes you busy but unproductive. Writing a blog post related to a book you are writing is productive towards accomplishing the main goal. Therefore, writing the blog post allows you to be both busy and productive at the same time.

Always being busy does not necessarily mean you will get better results. It is how you spend your time when you are busy that decides the kinds of results you will see in the long run. If you are busy and productive at the same time, your results are going to look really good.

The Problem With Waiting For Something To Happen

January 2, 2014 by Marc Guberti 4 Comments

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Some people who think of a great idea wait for everything to come in place. The problem with waiting for everything to align is that waiting does not result in the alignment. In order to get the alignment, you need to take action.

Goals don’t come to the people who don’t go after them. In order to accomplish your goals, you can’t wait for them to happen to you; you have to happen to them. You are the one who controls your own success. The more work you put in towards accomplishing your goal, the more successful you are going to become.

If you keep on waiting, the time will never be just right. The right time to start is now. There is no reason to wait for something to happen. Waiting does not result in progress. Work results in progress.

After enough waiting, it may eventually be too late to implement a goal–someone thought of it already, what you are thinking of wouldn’t be as popular now as it would have been, or something else. In order to implement your goal before its too late, you need to do the work that will allow you to accomplish your goal.

Don’t wait for a goal to happen. Happen to it.

Set The Bar (Even) Higher

December 26, 2013 by Marc Guberti 5 Comments

When most people think about giving themselves goals, they give themselves the easiest goals imaginable. The goals may be, “writing 1 blog post every week that is only 100 words,” or something similar. While it is good that progress is being made, it is easily possible to make more progress. In order to make more progress, you need to set the bar higher.

When people think of setting the bar higher, they quickly think of reasons why the bar is already set as high as possible. There is no limit to how high any bar can be set. If a bar is set at 14.6 feet, know that it can also go to 15 feet. The bar can keep on going higher and higher.

As you set the bar higher and higher for yourself, you will be giving yourself challenging goals. However, when those goals get accomplished, you will see the results. You will be able to do something far better than ever before. You will be able to break records, be very productive, and ultimately be better off.

Setting the bar high requires work on your part. After that work gets done, you will have the prize: a new record, incredible productivity, a big increase in traffic, a lot of sales for your new product, or something else.