Extreme Productivity

Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours
Robert C. Pozen
20121002

About This Book

In Extreme Productivity, Pozen reveals the secrets to workplace productivity and high performance. His book is for anyone feeling overwhelmed by an existing workload–facing myriad competing demands and multiple time-sensitive projects. Offering antidotes to a calendar full of boring meetings and a backlog of e-mails, Extreme Productivity explains how to determine your highest priorities and match them with how you actually spend your time.

Pozen shows that in order to be truly productive, professionals must make a critical shift in their mindset: from hours worked to results produced. He helps people at all stages of their careers read, writes, and make presentations quicker and more effectively. He provides professionals with practical tips on how to efficiently use their time in the office–while leading full and productive personal lives as well.

What is Personal Productivity?

The quantity and quality of your results in achieving your own objectives.

Success depends in large part on a proper mind-set: focusing on the results you plan to achieve, rather than the number of hours you work. -Robert C. Pozen

Content of This Book

Part I:  Three Big Ideas

You can maximize your productivity by applying three related ideas:
•  Articulate your goals and rank them in order of priority. This helps you align your time allocations with your priorities.
•  Focus on the final product. In tackling high-priority projects, quickly formulate tentative conclusions to guide your work.
•  Don’t sweat the small stuff. Deal with low-priority items in a way that allows you to spend as little time on them as possible.

1.  Set and Prioritize Your Goals   [here]
2.  Focus on the Final Product   [here]
3.  Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff   [here]

Part II:  Productivity Every Day

This part is about implementing three big ideas of part-I on a daily basis.

4.  Your Daily Routine   [here]
5.  Traveling Lightly
6.  Efficient Meetings

Part III:  Developing Personal Skills

Begin by thinking carefully about your goals, and then apply specific techniques to improve your effectiveness. These three key personal skills are primarily aimed at increasing your productivity–the quantity and quality of your results for the time spent.

7.  Reading Effectively   [here]
8.  Writing Effectively   [here]
9.  Speaking Effectively   [here]

Part IV:  Managing Up and Down

To be productive within an organization, you should proactively manage your relationships with employees above and below you.

10.  Managing Your Team
11.  Managing Your Boss

Part V:  Pursuing a Productive Life

This part broadens the concept of productivity to discuss how to formulate and pursue your long-term goals over your entire career.

12.  Maximizing Your Career Options over a Lifetime   [here]
13.  Embrace Change but Stay the Same   [here]
14.  Balancing Home and Work