Are Time Management Skills The Key To Increased Personal Productivity?

Online, March 23, 2011 (Newswire.com) - Our workloads seem to be constantly increasing. Our work days seem to be getting longer. We obviously need to improve our time management skills to stay on top of things.

But is this really the answer?

According to Alexander Kjerulf, the answer is no. In his article below he acknowledges that good time management skills are very beneficial, but he argues that the real secret to increasing personal productivity is to be happy in your work.

Top 10 Reasons Why Happiness At Work Is The Ultimate Productivity Booster:

Lisa was falling behind at work. Every morning she woke up nervous about the workday ahead of her. Every evening she went home thinking of all the tasks she hadn't gotten around to.

Lisa is a 35-year old engineer and project manager at a Danish IT company. With business booming, keeping up had become a struggle - she felt she had to run really fast, to just to stay in place.

With her in-box overflowing and people all around her clamoring for assistance on their projects, she started to look at various productivity tools and systems and quickly settled on the one she'd use. As is typical for Lisa, once she's decided to do something, she does it, and with new ways of tracking time, improved to-do lists and prioritizing her work, she did notice that she was getting more work done.

But she still felt, that she could be more productive. While she was thinking about her next step, it struck her: Some of what she did, she hated doing.

While she generally enjoyed her job, especially helping people plan their projects and advising them on the best ways to move forward, some of her tasks were administrative in nature. Tracking progress, updating various statistics, generating reports, etc... . They didn't take up that much of her time - but they were a lot less fun. Let's face it: to Lisa, they were boring as hell.

She talked to her boss about it, and they decided to give those tasks to a project secretary. This freed up a little time for Lisa, but mostly it allowed her to work on those parts of her job that she really liked. Consequently Lisa became a lot happier at work - and THAT'S when her productivity sky-rocketed. Now she had the energy to connect with her people and the creativity to think up and implement new ideas. Instead of feeling stressed and harried, she was optimistic and positive.

While her productivity system had definitely helped her get more done, the productivity boost she got from being happy at work was many times bigger. Lisa is now working way less hours - and getting much more done. And most importantly, she's enjoying work a lot more!

If you want to get more done at work, the productivity gurus out there will tell you that it's all about having the right system. You need to prioritize your tasks, you must keep detailed logs of how you spend your time, to-do lists are of course essential, you must learn to structure your calendar and much, much more.

But that's not where you should start. You should start by liking what you do.

The single most efficient way to increase your productivity is to be happy at work. No system, tool or methodology in the world can beat the productivity boost you get from really, really enjoying your work.

I'm not knocking all the traditional productivity advice out there - it's not that it's bad or deficient. It's just that when you apply it in a job that basically doesn't make you happy, you're trying to fix something at a surface level when the problem goes much deeper.

Visit the link below to learn the 10 reasons why happiness at work is the #1 productivity booster:

http://www.managementnuggets.com/2011/03/are-time-management-skills-key-to.html