You might be used to thinking about productivity in terms of your team – but what about your own productivity?
Whether you are a manager, team member or freelancer, there are many simple things you can do to get more out of your day.

When looking at your personal productivity, the first thing you need to do is find your feet – in other words, you need to know, “how productive are you?” In order to achieve this you need to measure your own personal productivity.

There’s a simple equation for measuring productivity:
The amount of value you create divided by the number of hours you work. A person with high productivity will create the same amount of value for an organization in a shorter time or create a more significant amount of value in the same amount of time.
The problem is, it’s hard to measure personal productivity this way as you won’t always have a clear understanding of the value you create. This is especially true if your work doesn’t involve creating a physical product, making output harder to measure.

So, it might be easier to think about productivity in terms of the total number of productive hours you have on an average day or week. A productive hour is one where you get stuff done – where you feel you can concentrate on a task and complete it, free from distractions.

Many of us feel more productive at certain times of the day or week than others. And distractions range from sudden meetings and phone calls to chat notifications to having too many small or odd jobs getting in the way – all of which prevent you from getting the “big stuff” done.

A 2019 study reported by the Economic Research Council found that the average worker was only productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes in every working day. Assuming the average working day is around 8 hours, this leaves nearly 5 hours of doing… not so much. This leads to the eyebrow-raising conclusion that if your personal productivity is above 3 hours per day, you’re already more productive than the average employee.

When it comes to measuring your personal productivity, you might want to ask yourself questions like:
How much time do you have on an average day to focus on one specific task?

If your calendar is full of admin blocks or if you tend to work on two or more projects simultaneously, this may affect your productivity.

How many meetings do you usually have in a day?

Do you regularly find yourself juggling multiple tasks or unrealistic deadlines?

If this often happens, it suggests you need to reassess your approach to work – do you need to delegate more?
Are you able to take regular breaks, including a lunch break?

Breaks are essential for maintaining focus, so you need to carve out time to step away from the screen.