When undertaking productivity assignments in some countries, it is surprising to find out how far performance and productivity is from that of the best performing countries snd organisations. This in spite of the data that

Do you know the real underlying causes of downtime and reasons for employee inactivity?  Are you able to act on these causes in time to negate their effects?   If ‘yes’ to both, you have

Managers who hear their employees laughing may be angry at the lack of discipline, art the lack of concentration, at the lack of serious effort. Yet, laughter serves a variety of purposes in a work

When we diet, we usually start with great enthusiasm and we probably have some initial success. We buy new foods and ingredients, try new recipes. We might go to gather gym more often band try

Many of us beat ourselves up at the end of the day because we haven’t been able to complete our ToDo list - which just gets longer and longer. However instead of bemoaning what we

Many organisations are bringing employees back to the office - perhaps not full-time but maybe on a hybrid working basis.  When they do this there are all sorts of logistical challenges. Do we bring everyone back

There is no one ‘secret’ to improving productivity.  It must be a team effort looking at big things like strategy and culture; and little things like execution and motivation.  None of these can be left out.  The

The UK government is pouring m ore money in to the National Health Service. During the pandemic the NHS has been highly valued but terribly stretched and many of its normal day to day procedures

There have been many reports that the pandemic has proven the effectiveness and  productivity of home working. However, a lot of these reports were based on surveys of employees who say they feel more productive when

One useful principle to remember when dealing with incoming mail is to to try and handle everything only once.  Pick something up and deal with it so it needs no further action.  It is so

Mindfulness has been a bit of a buzzword over the last couple of years. It suggests that we should all be aware of who and what we are, and try to focus on the present

There have been quite a few claims over the last five years that artificial intelligence (AI) will result in huge gains in productivity.   These huge gains don’t, though, seem to be arriving any time soon. When

We’ve talked quite a few times about measuring productivity - to highlight (relative) inefficiencies, to set benchmarks and targets for improvement - but mainly to understand just what is happening in a process.  We measure throughput,

Many of us use multiple messaging and productivity platforms in our work - Zoom, Teams, Slack and so on. Quite a few also regularly drop into Twitter or Facebook. Each time we read an interesting

Many people use ToDo lists and apps to keep track of their outstanding tasks.   There are also lots of apps available, with different flavours of operation. However, you need to remember that  a ToDo list (even

I saw in a recent survey that people who thought their productivity had increased (or at least stayed the same) whilst working from home during the pandemic, also reported that their mental well-being had improved.

People often claim that technology is the key to improved productivity.  Firms should, they say, be investing in digital services, robotics, AI, IoT and so on.   Generally, there does seem to be a correlation

Many people feel overwhelmed at work.  The relentless tide of messages and emails seems to set an impossible agenda. So, we need to improve our time management, right?  Wrong! If tou create more space by

For some people, art plays an important part in their lives. I’m not talking about ‘the arts’ - if I was, that first statement would probable apply to just about everybody - but to the

One of the keys to high productivity is to organise - and then to schedule - work according to its priority and urgency.  Too often, though, this potential productivity gets sidelined as other facto come into

When trying to improve productivity, many people start by looking at inputs - trying to reduce costs by saving materials, energy or manpower.  There is nothing wrong with such an approach except that it is

If your organisation expects you to be ‘always on’, always working, always available by telephone or email, they are exhibiting signs of ‘toxic productivity’.  I hate that term for all sorts of reasons but mainly