In 2005, a psychiatrist at King’s College London did a study where 3 groups of people were asked to take an IQ test:

• Group 1 took the test uninterrupted
• Group 2 took the test while distracted by emails and ringing telephones
• Group 3 took the test after smoking marijuana

Not surprisingly, Group 1 did better than the other 2 groups by an average of 10 points.

Surprisingly, Group 3 did better than Group 2 by 6 points.

Is this Coach advocating for pot-smoking in the office?  Ha!  No, not at all.

What I encourage my clients to focus on is prioritization of work items and minimization of distractions.  When either or both are ignored, this can lead to multitasking and the death of creating value in your professional life.

This topic is not something new from depths of Captain Obvious’ vault.  However, the fact that we still discuss it and fail to implement solutions should tell us that we are failing in this most basic concept.  To increase our Value Creation, we must take control of our day.

My goal as a Coach is to get my clients to the point in their life/career where they are either creating massive value during the day (Priority and High Lifetime Value items) or they are at the beach with family (Rejuvenation and Work/Life Balance).  Most other items that sit between those two highly valued activities should be delegated, dropped, minimized, etc. from your schedule.

These 3 tips can help drive your productivity and point you towards massive value creation in your daily endeavors:

1. Jump into the driver’s seat of your schedule – prioritize your High Value items against those that create little to no value. Divide your activities into categories and action accordingly:
   1. High Lifetime Value tasks – prioritize
   2. High Dollar per Hour tasks – after HLV is completed
   3. Low Value tasks – delegate, delete, etc.
2. Construct your work environment strategically – provide for times to never be interrupted with your team, schedule email time, turn off email/text alerts, keep a spotless workspace, etc. You know what your interrupters consist of in your world – build your space with the goal of minimizing them.
3. Act now! It is about action and implementation.  Push yourself to be better than yesterday!