PRODUCTIVITY

PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS Series 35

PRODUCTIVITY

Productivity of a worker is the amount of goods or services produced by the worker per time.

To produce means to make things happen. It means to create with skills. It also means to make something appear from nothing.

Productivity is the engine that drives economy. The economy of a nation is measured by its Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the amount of what its workforce produces locally.

Productivity begets wealth.

Power to Produce.

Everyone has power to produce. We were created to create. You can bring something out of nothing. You can make it happen. You were created for good works; you can work things out.

A creator or a consumer?

God created animals and plants. You consume them. What have you created? You were not created only to consume. You were created to create. And I say until you create you’re not permitted to consume!

You can create your own trees; plant some today. You can create your own vegetables; make a garden. You can create your own animals; make it happen! Take this truth further. You can create your own home. You can create your own happiness.You can create your own business. You can create whatever you can conceive. Go and make it happen.

Productive Work.

Wealth can only be created through work. Many workers see work as bondage and suffering so they lack excitement at work. This attitude results to poor quality of work and low productivity. It is said that 80 percent of heart attacks occur on Monday, workers most hated day.

A worker is a productive member of a society. He is a person that uses energy to get things done. Many workers want money but they don’t want to work.

Job is not the same as work. Work is activation of energy to accomplish a definite task. Work is the use of mental and physical efforts directed at meeting a set goal. Work is the release of personal potential for personal effectiveness. So, work reveals and liberates a worker’s potential.

Job, on the other hand, only provides a means of livelihood, but does not touch on someone’s potential. While work provides a platform to identify and make use of your potential, job only puts your energy to use for wages. Job at best keeps you in a circle of existence – work, eat, and work again. Job looks for to financial rewards only. Work, in addition to rewards, leads to fulfillment in life. So then, be more interested in your work, not just in a job.

Benefits of Work

     1.     Work reveals your potentials.

     2.     Work provides opportunities to fulfill purpose.

     3.     Work refines and expands resources.

     4.     Work blesses you and makes you a blessing.

     5.     Work determines your status in life.

Many people see work as a necessary evil. They don’t see it as a blessing in disguise. A wise man said, “Many people miss opportunity because it is dressed in overall and looks like work.” They think labor or work is a result of sin. No, labor had been in place before sin was introduced to man. God established work and commanded man to work before man sinned. We’ve got to embrace hard work hard in order to avoid hard life. Hard work will deliver us from the consequences of laziness, which include hunger, shame, decay, poverty, and slavery.

Resourcefulness

Resourcefulness is the ability to use what you’ve got to get what you need. It is finding a way where there seems to be no way. It is the application of available resources to solve problems of life. Resourcefulness can also be seen as inner ability to make things or situations work to one’s favor. Resourcefulness is the mother of productivity, and productivity begets wealth.

Resources and Wealth

Resources are things you can use to create wealth. It is safe to say that resources are wealth in crude form. Wealth is simply resources that have been refined and are in demand. Wealth is resources to which value has been added. We have natural resources, man-made resources, and human resources we can use to create wealth.

Natural resources around us include air, water, earth, mineral ores, plants, animals, and time.

Man-made resources include money and other material things that can serve as raw materials.

Human resources include people’s skills, knowledge and abilities that can be used to create wealth. Human resources is at the head of all other forms of resources. The end of resourcefulness is wealth creation.

How to Create Wealth

Anyone can create wealth who has mastered the human resources available to them. Corporate organizations harness the skills and creativity of their workforce to create wealth. Developed nations, through functional education, develop the potential of their people in order to create wealth. You, too, can identify, develop and deploy your abilities to create your own wealth. How? Sit down and think!

     

     1.     What do you have in you? What’s your gift or talent? What are you naturally good at?

     

     2.     What do you have around you? People you love and people who love you. People in need. Resources – human, natural, man-made resources.

     

     3.     What do you like doing?

a.     Meeting people and making friends

b.     Singing and playing music

c.      Selling and buying

d.     Teaching and developing people

e.     Wanting to know why and how things work

f.       Caring for people’s physical and spiritual well being

g.     Cooking, catering, decorating

h.     Building things, pulling them apart, and building again

i.        Drawing, painting, acting, dancing

j.       Writing and reading

      4.     What can you do with the resources in you and around you? How can you manipulate them to produce things people need and want to pay for? For instance

a.     What can you do with the knowledge you gained in school?

b.     How can you practice what you know in order to gain from them?

c.      What can you do to meet the needs of people around you?

d.     What can you sell for money?

e.     Can’t you package your gift for sale?

f.       Do you have an idea? Somebody somewhere might just need it!

Ideas Rule the World!

Human resource is the greatest. You have in you all it takes to be all you want to be. You can generate ideas that can bring you fortune. You have abilities to meet your responsibilities.

It takes human resources to identify, manage and make all other resources profitable. Material resources can fail. Natural resources can finish. But human resources are inexhaustible. Therefore, nations and corporations are serious about human capacity development.

Nations that have not developed their human resources are at the mercy of developed nations. Their natural resources notwithstanding, developing nations continue to grope in poverty. Their resources are being exploited by developed nations because they lack human capacity. Their natural resources are transported overseas where they are refined and sold back to them in exorbitant prizes.

Nations who have functional ideas rule over nations who refuse to use their brains. Likewise, persons who use their productive minds to generate ideas dominate mentally lazy people.

It’s time we broke loose from mental slavery?

I Have an Idea!

An idea is a thought or an impression of what to do. An idea flashes across the mind in a second and it takes being sensitive to track it them. It is said that an average person has an average of four ideas that run across his mind at a given time, anyone which could make him a fortune if followed up.

Ideas come at instances of inspiration. An idea is an insight based on hindsight for a foresight. An idea is a piece of your mind when your mind is put to productive use.

Many people don’t do anything about the ideas on their minds because people more readily see why an idea cannot work than why it can work. When next you have an idea, don’t delete it from your mind. Do the following:

1.     Analyze it. Do some analysis, but not too much analysis, because too much analysis usually leads to paralysis. Weigh the negative and positive parts of the idea. Even if the negative outweighs the positive outcomes, check the benefits. Will it benefit you and others at the long run? It yes, then write it down immediately.

2.     Activate it. What can you do now – right now – to make it work? Who can you talk to about it? Then, take the first step and go to work.

Productive Energy

A worker needs energy to work and be productive. However, a worker needs more than physical energy in order to be productive. A worker needs three levels of energy – physical energy, emotional energy and mental energy.

Physical energy is the energy we get from food. It keeps us physically on the move.

Mental energy is the energy we for thinking and reasoning. It comes from a functional mind.

Emotional energy is the energy of the emotions. It comes from our feeling system.

It has been discovered that what you think determines how you feel, and how you feel affects what you do. If you don’t have enough emotional energy for emotional stability, you will drain your mental and physical energy.

It is your responsibility to conserve your emotional energy. Avoid emotional upset – such as anger, sadness, envy, and discouragement – which can slow down your mind and use up your physical energy. Store up enough emotional energy to keep you calm and concentrate on your work. With enough emotional energy, your mind can work optimally, and you can get your work done effectively and productively.

Mental energy is the energy you use when you do brain work, when you engage your mind in productive ventures.

Productive Mind

Productivity begins in the mind. It is tied to productive use of the mind. Only people that use their mind productively produce useful things. Somebody said, “Every tower builder is a tower thinker.” Until you engage your mind to think, you cannot handle projects successfully.

Productive Time

Everything in life works per time. There’s a season to sow, there’s a season to weed, a season to water, a season to wait, and then a time to harvest.

Productivity is a measure of time, the amount produced per time. Gross Domestic Product is a measure of what a nation produces in a period of time.

The rate at which you get things done is crucial. You should spend time productively. If you spend two hours on a piece of work you could do in one hour, you have reduced your productivity by half. If you do less work than you used to do per time, then your productivity has reduced.

Effective productive people are aware of this fact and regularly strive to beat their own record. You should be doing more this year than you did last year, not just in terms of activity but productivity. You shouldn’t have a better last year. Strive to beat your own records.