Pinnacle Personnel Services, LLC | Debbie Hatch
I love teaching but I equally love learning. For that reason, I personally invest in at least two events per year that will help me to grow as an instructor.
Today I’m attending a Peak Work Performance Summit hosted by Ron Friedman, Ph.D., author of The Best Place to Work: The Art and Science of Creating an Extraordinary Workplace.
Here are several great insights for achieving top performance, that have already been shared.
1. View busyness as a lack of focus.There’s a satisfying rush we experience when there’s too much on our plate: we feel needed, challenged, even productive. Sadly, that pleasurable experience is an illusion. It robs us of our focus and prevents us from making progress on the work that matters most. How many days have ended with you thinking, “I’ve been busy absolutely all day!! Yet I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything!”??
2. Own your time.
Our most satisfying work comes about when we’re playing offense, working on projects that we initiate ourselves. Many of us know this intuitively, yet we continue to spend the vast majority of our days playing defense, responding to other people’s requests. Sometimes we have no choice but I do, personally, draw boundaries wherever I can and hold (myself! and) others to those boundaries. Not every email needs to be responded to within 5 minutes.
3. Avoid the “Victim Trap.”
When things aren’t going your way, it’s easy to point fingers or feel sorry for yourself. However, the more we embrace negativity, the more that negativity spreads. I know it sounds easy. I know it can be hard to do. As the author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind T. Harv Eker points out, though, “Whatever you focus on expands.” We can only control ourselves.
4. Make a habit of stepping back.
The best solutions reveal themselves when we step into the shower, go for a run, or take a vacation. Top performers view time off not as stalled productivity, but as an investment in their future performance. We know this intuitively, too. How many times have you been stuck on a problem; unable to make any headway? You take a short walk, maybe grab something to eat, or are driving home and, “Bam!” There’s the answer! It’s been there all along. I remind supervisors frequently, employees taking a 2-5 minute walk every 60-90 minutes isn’t lost productivity. I get so much more accomplished when I’m not chained to the desk!
5. Help others strategically.Avoid saying yes to every helping opportunity. Instead, specialize in one or two forms of helping that you genuinely enjoy and excel at uniquely. My husband’s nickname for me used to be, “spring butt” because every time I went to anything and they were looking for volunteers, I would spring out of my chair. “Me. Me. I’ll help.” I still love to help but now realize that volunteering for everything isn’t good for me, or them. I have a strategy in place for when and how I’ll say no. This is one of the boundaries I mentioned in number 2.
6. Make important behaviors measurable.
To make progress toward any goal, it helps to track our behaviors. Bestselling author Gretchen Rubin sees monitoring as one of the keys to behavior changes, saying, “If you want to eat more healthily, keep a food journal. If you want to get more exercise, use a step counter. If you want to stick to a budget, track your spending.”
