Productivity: As Simple as a Grocery List

Posted on Monday, April 13, 2009 .

Being productive: As easy as a Grocery List

When people hear the words productivity and efficiency, they often conjure images of Office Space consultants coming in and firing people, or their bosses giving them more work to do. Perhaps you have read a book claiming that it can show you how to complete tasks more quickly to get you back hours in a week, and perhaps it can. Maybe those books seem a bit overwhelming. This is not what I mean when I say productivity. Productivity isn�t scary; it�s simply about getting more time back by doing small things to work smarter, not harder. Working smarter is as simple as making a grocery list.

Breaking it down:

If you are like most Americans you do your own grocery shopping. Maybe you make a list of what you need and want, maybe you don't. So let me ask you this, did having a list (or not having a list for that matter) change anything for you when you went to the store?

I am guessing that when you had a list you didn't forget anything, your bill was right about where you expected it to be and you were in and out of the store pretty quickly. Now I am also guessing the opposite is true: that the times you went to the store with no such list you forgot things, your bill was more money than you thought and it took you a while to get the shopping done.

The simple fact about grocery shopping is that having a list is more productive: you get in and out faster, you buy only what is on the list and you don't forget items. The same is true in life whether it be at work, or in your personal life. You most certainly can apply Grocery List logic to your whole life to become more productive.

Applying Groceries to Life and Work

If you read nothing else on this blog, please take with you this one point: Lists are the key to being more productive.

On this blog I am going to be doling out a lot of advice and tips on working more productively. Just like with your grocery shopping lists, you can stop forgetting things, you can do your tasks when you need to, and usually (not always) you can get them all done faster.

Part of productivity is about doing individual tasks faster, but this is only one small piece of the greater equation. Prioritizing, remembering, organizing, and managing time: these are the things that allow you to find that extra time in the week, that keep stress down and that let you stay on top of work. So lets get unburied, shall we?

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by BEN BROOKS