Be Productive

Productivity is a widely spoken of topic in society. People launch campaigns, exhibitions, projects, conferences on productivity with the intention of increasing the public awareness of the subject.

There're a lot of preachers, lecturers, trainers to make people aware of productivity on TV, radio and through the printed media. But still the country's overall productivity is at a low ebb. It should be started within the individual and it should then be spread to society as a whole.

What's productivity?

True, it's widely used in the business field. You may think that you need not to learn to be productive because it's merely a business concept. It's not only used in business. It can be used in your personal life as well in order to be really productive in your life.

There're technical terms and formulas to explain productivity, perhaps understood only by the experts of the field. I'm trying to give you an easily comprehensible idea of what productivity is.

Experts on the productivity field defines it as the combination of efficiency and effectiveness..... Oh, the next question is what efficiency and effectiveness do mean...without knowing the meaning of these terms it's difficult to understand what it really means.

What's meant by efficiency and effectiveness?

Efficiency technically means getting the best out of your resources. Resources mean what is available to you such as land, money, material, energy etc.

I would cite an example from the domestic environment. Most housewives don't know to cook more with less gas, and iron more clothes without more current being wasted.

And at office as well. Do you know in Japan they are more concerned about space efficiency. That means utilising the space to the maximum. Unlike in Sri Lanka, space is very expensive in Japan. Lands are sold and space rented out per square inch.

When they arrange an office they never keep more space between two tables or chairs like in Sri Lanka. This is what we called efficiency, getting the maximum out of what's available.

Effectiveness means doing the right thing. Yes, right things at the right time. Effectiveness is related to achieving goals. In short it's target oriented. An effective person makes goals and try to achieve them.

For example, when a doctor treats patients at a clinic, efficiency is the number of patients he can see per a day. But the effectiveness of the doctor depends on the number of patients he can cure per a day.

If one doctor sees 100 patients and cures 10 patients and another sees 30 patients and cures 25 patients the latter is more effective than the first one but not efficient. But both the doctors are not productive. If another doctor sees 100 patients and cures 90 patients he is a super productive person.

As I said productivity is the combination of both efficiency and effectiveness. To be a productive person you should be empowered with both the proponents.

Another good example I can cite here to further give you an idea of what productivity means.

When the traffic police are ordered to catch speedy vehicles in order to prevent accidents, they are often given a target per a day. What they do to cover the target is to catch more vehicles which drive on less crowded roads.

The reason behind that is usually on less crowded roads people drive faster. When they do that, the number of vehicles caught per a day or in another words efficiency is high. But less effective. Productivity is also less.

In private hospitals, efficiency is pretty high. But they rarely take the effectiveness into account. They try to fill empty beds with more patients. A room vacant is a loss for them. Their aim is less towards curing patients fully.

It's true that they try their best to cure people. But a government hospital can be more effective where as their efficiency is pretty low. In many business stakeholder are oriented towards efficiency rather than effectiveness. That's why the productivity is low in most Sri Lankan institutions.

Is 5S workable

Of course, why not! The matter is whether people want to arrange their environment according to the 5S concept. Though people know the meaning of 5S and its purposes, they rarely apply that to improve their productivity.

How to be a productive person

First of all you should have the mentality that you want to be a productive person. It should start from within you. Be productive within yourself, in your room, at office, out doors, almost everywhere. Then evaluate yourself whether you are productive than earlier.

You should be more focused on your personal productivity. Specially being productive of your time is the most important aspect. As you get up in the morning, keep in mind that to spend your day productively.

PRIDE and 5W 1H

You should be more concern on your PRIDE. Productivity In Daily Effort. Don't confine your effort to be productive to the first eager days of start. You should observe them in a daily basis. That's important for you to get used to that habit.

When you do something, ask yourself the following questions

W - What's being done

W - Why is it to be done

W - When is it to be done

W - Who's doing that

W - Where is it to be done

H - How is it to be done

The important point I would like to mention here is that the idea of productivity should be inculcated at small age itself in order to understand what the productivity is and to be familiar with it. But not to be disheartened, it works well for adults as well if properly implemented.