Today’s productivity tip is a self-reflection exercise.

When it comes to personal productivity, there’s no better place to start than with self-awareness.

Answer the following questions thoughtfully and you’ll be on your way to being more productive…no matter your industry or line of work.

On the way to work…

Focus on a single task.

It’s easy to say you want to be more productive at work, but this probably won’t help you in getting to the root of the matter. Why? Most likely your productivity is based on many different smaller factors, all of which add up exponentially over the course of a work day, week, month and year. If you can isolate and focus on these smaller factors and you’ll be one step ahead in your quest for increased productivity. Can you name a specific task in which you want to become more productive?

Uncover the truth.

This might be a difficult question to answer but try your best: do you honestly, truly think you are unproductive? What level of measurement are you using to measure your productivity? (you might want to check out my past post here). Can you quantify your thoughts? Are you late on deadlines? Are you not understanding assignments from the get-go? Are you wasting time procrastinating? Do you not have the right materials or proper tools with which to do your job?

Identify external factors.

What environmental factors, if any, are causing you trouble or preventing you from completing your work in a timely fashion? Unnecessary interruptions from coworkers, a disruptive or noisy work environment, broken machinery, delays in the production schedule? You may not know what is bothering you until you stop and think about it for a moment.

Identify internal factors.

What internal factors are causing you trouble or preventing you from completing your work in a timely fashion? Are you unsure as to how to proceed with a project? Do you need some assistance? Are you potentially confusing inaction with lack of productivity? For example, just because you are not producing a physical item doesn’t mean you are not working. What about the ideas, thoughts, or leads you’ve come up with or generated?

Take steps to remove or release external and/or internal factors.

Mitigate larger productivity issues by making smaller changes to your routine. If you are more productive reading materials in silence and a noisy work area prevents you from doing so, you could: wear ear plugs, listen to music with earphones, buy a noise-canceling device or white-noise generator, request a desk reassignment, work in an empty conference room, area or empty office and so on.

Now to you…how do you view your productivity at work? What steps do you take to try to increase your productivity, either on the whole or in a single task or project?