Many of our blogs have looked at the difference between effectiveness and productivity, and so we won’t dwell on that here. What we do need to look at is the difference between an effective signal & productive noise. To do this we need to consider the work of our hero Ivy Lee and also people such as Steve Jobs.
The world is full of advice, systems, apps, blogs and books to help you become more productive, and productivity is important, but productivity is about output. Steve Jobs used to have three things that he had to work on in a day, and it was a good day if he spent at least 80% of his time on those three things. Ivy Lee had six ( I prefer three). Either way, these things were based on moving the business or the individual toward their goal. They were the three most important (effective) things they could be doing with their time. Not the three most productive. Productivity is a short term measure based on output. Effectiveness, on the other hand, is based on the long term objective. Productivity does not secure the future, effectiveness does.
Those of us who are old enough remember when you had to tune your radio have an advantage here. It was a question of turning a nob until the noise died down and the signal from the station you wanted to hear came through loud and clear. For those of you who are too young to know what I am talking about please google or look up on YouTube “tuning an old fashioned radio”. It’s important, because the point is this. You had to tune out everything but what was important. You had to eliminate the noise to get the signal, and the same is true for effective people. Those three things you have identified for the day are the signal, the rest is noise. Some noise is more important than others, but it is still noise. Astronomers understand this only too well. They point their telescopes at space and a huge amount noise comes in. Gathering the data in an efficient way may well make them highly productive but it is the signal from the planet, star or E.T. that is important. The great discoveries have resulted from months or years of unproductive work filtering out the noise until the signal is heard. The effective ones ignore analysing and working with all the noise and just concentrate on finding and acting on that signal. The same is true for effective businesses and people.
Just like tuning a radio or searching through space we will all have to spend some of our time on noise. Answering emails, doing the VAT Return, writing the proposal, recruiting employees, filing statutory returns, but these are all noise. Getting orders out quickly and efficiently is important and doing it productively is vital, but it’s all noise. It doesn’t necessarily move you, or your business forward. Fortunately A.I. is getting better at dealing with the noise jobs and letting us concentrate on the signal. Locating the signal and locking onto it is what is effective.
We recommend the Ivy Lee method for locking onto your signal, and you can find details here The Ivy Lee Method & How To Have An Effective Day Try it and see the difference between the effective signal and the productive noise.
Many people are too busy with the data to day productive noise to be able to concentrate on the effective signal, and so if you would like our help to tune your or your teams personal radio then please Contact