Wasting time at work is wasting more than money – it’s wasting your potential! Be more productive at work with three simple principles and one simple phrase.

Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy

Your productivity at work suffers from one major factor: distractions. When you’re stuck in low-value meetings or working on projects that don’t result in revenue, your productivity suffers.  You need to master one simple phrase to start reclaiming your time. It’s short and simple. You need to learn how to Say No. I tell people all the time how the “Say No” process is simple, and I think they confuse this with being easy: Running is simple. Running a marathon is NOT easy.  Learning to SAY NO to distractions, low-value meetings, tasks that don’t add value, and projects that don’t add revenue IS simple.  But . . . becoming more productive at work is also a marathon – for this to work, you have to commit to the process every day.

Start Today

Get out from under those time-wasting tasks with the Three Principles:

1. Practice Rigorous Authenticity – What is the cost of saying yes when you could say no? Why are you tempted to say yes when you know it’s not a good time investment?
2. Surrender the Outcome – Are you giving fear more power than it deserves? If you’re afraid of a certain outcome as a result of your NO, admit it first. Put it in perspective. Challenge your fearful nature.
3. Do the Uncomfortable Work – Say no to that meeting. Share your unique perspective or your honest feedback when asked for it. Stop being a yes-man. Embrace the vulnerability. 

  Do this every day. Don’t overthink it, just commit.  By confronting your fears every day, you’ll identify the Uncomfortable Work you need to do in order for you to transform productivity at work. To be good at anything, to make any real change in your work or life, consistency is key.

How We Can Learn from Toyota and Lean Manufacturing

Do you know about lean manufacturing principles? Toyota refined and implemented the process to revolutionize how we approach manufacturing while growing into the powerhouse they are today. Toyota employees are more productive at work because they’re using their own version of the Three Principles! Toyota started saying no to wasting resources and wasted time. They said no to:

• Overproduction and unnecessary inventory
• Waiting on the flow of goods/resources
• Expensive processes where simple options existed

That’s right, they cut out the highly advanced machines that are slow and expensive and replaced them with simple manufacturing processes that produced high-quality parts at scale with far less overhead and time investment. Toyota did what others wouldn’t to increase productivity at work for their manufacturing employees. They started reclaiming lost resources and time by saying NO. Imagine the resources your leadership can see wasting away right now. The waste is sitting right in front of them and they KNOW it . . . but they aren’t saying anything. What Toyota did for manufacturing can be done for your business today. You have to learn to say no to wasted time. In this new economy, time is the greatest resource we have. And time is wasted at an unbelievable rate, which makes it the biggest competitive advantage for those willing to do the Uncomfortable Work and take back 500 hours every year for every single person on their team. This is huge. Are you ready to confront your fears and free your employees from the yes-man mentality and time-wasting tasks with the simple solution we built to make a tangible, lasting difference?

Change Leadership and Be More Productive at Work

Follow Michael Brody-Waite on LinkedIn to find your secret weapon, remove the need to impress, and thrive at work and in life using the Three Principles of Authentic Leadership. 

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