Productivity vs. producing. Is there a difference?
Productivity: the quality, state, or fact of being able to generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services.
Producing: to bring into existence by intellectual or creative ability.
I recently completed a six-week course on productivity. One of the first things I had to grapple with was my definition of productivity. Having spent many, many years in Corporate America, my vision of productivity were exhaustingly fluid physical In and Out boxes.
Frequently, I judged my productivity based on how many items transferred from my In Box to my Out Box daily. Or how many e-mails I worked my way through; how many reports were created and distributed, etc. You get the drift . . . my vision of productivity was physically moving or creating something. In hindsight, I may have been experiencing producing, not productivity.
Now that I’m a solopreneur and my business is all about helping others’ create change in their worlds, my physical In and Out boxes are mainly non-existent. Sure, some is producing that goes on in my world like processing e-mails, creating webinars, writing articles and blog posts, etc. However, a substantial portion of what I do is meet with clients, engage with educational opportunities, marketing, networking, etc.
To help manage expectations, I looked at a typical week with an eye for productivity, not producing, to help me manage my perspective. Here are some examples of what I found:
- Client meetings (7 hours): Productivity
- Creating client invoices (1 hour): Producing
- Creating blogs/newsletters (3 hours): Producing
- Consuming educational webinars/podcasts (7 hours): Productivity
- Business-related reading (3.5 hours): Productivity
Before this exercise, I would not have looked at education (a large chunk of my week) as productivity. Still, per the definition, it is what I do to “generate, create, enhance, or bring forth goods and services.”
What can you do to change your perspective on your productivity?
Cindy Jobs
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