5 Ways Self-Awareness Can Improve Your Productivity
If you've ever looked up at the end of a long work day and wondered why nothing seemed to get done, your problem could stem from a lack of self-awareness.
What is self-awareness?
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize and understand the impact of your behavior on yourself and on other people around you. People who are self-aware know exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it. They also understand the consequences of their actions on other people. While self-awareness is important for effective communication and successful team leadership, it's also a critical factor in your productivity.
Self-awareness may be the missing piece of your productivity.
If you find yourself stuck in a pattern of inefficient habits, unproductive routines, and uninformed decision-making, then improving your self-awareness can be the key to unlocking better behavior and better results. According to researchers at Wright State University, self-awareness will give you "a sense of who you are and a vision of the person you want to become," and with this insight, you can craft a plan for personal and professional development. Over time, the improvements that you make will translate to many business benefits, including increased productivity.
Five concrete steps for better self-awareness.
Here are five ways that building your self-awareness can help you become more productive.
1. Focus on priorities. Most people become distracted easily, constantly shifting from one task to another. As your attention wanders, time slips away and your productivity suffers. When you practice self-awareness, you will learn to focus your mind and your energy on the task at hand. Start by making a list of your tasks for the upcoming day or for the week ahead. Then, prioritize these tasks based on complexity, upcoming deadlines, and the need to involve other team members. Finally, time-box yourself as you begin working. Close your office door, put on your headphones, and block an hour or two on your calendar so you can focus exclusively on your work. By focusing your mind for 30 minutes or an hour at a time, you'll be able to concentrate and accomplish real work while resisting the urge to multitask or get sidetracked.
2. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, your project may drag on painfully, or even get stuck at certain points. You may be better suited to some project tasks while you struggle with others, but you'll never know the extent of your abilities unless you have self-awareness. By practicing self-awareness, you'll learn to recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. More importantly, you'll recognize when to ask for help, and when to offer help to others. Productive people don't waste time needlessly struggling with a certain task when they can ask a fellow team member for help, or look for the training or assistance they need. By improving your self-awareness, you can become a better judge of your own abilities.
3. Make better decisions. Are you a quick decision maker who likes to jump at opportunities and think about the consequences later? Do you prefer to forge ahead with what you think is best, rather than seeking input from others first? Or are you in the habit of putting important decisions off until they can't be avoided? These are all qualities that you need to recognize as you work to become more self-aware. Once you're aware of the patterns of your own behavior, you can make adjustments that will improve your decision-making skills. The best leaders are those who rely on self-awareness to make informed decisions. In fact, one survey of leaders at more than 800 companies found that leaders at higher levels of management levels had better self-awareness than those at lower levels within those organizations. When you have full knowledge of your own mindset and the impact of your choices, then you'll confidently make decisions that are best for everyone.
4. Manage your stress. It can be incredibly difficult to get work done when you feel paralyzed by stress. Not only is stress bad for your overall health, it's also a productivity killer. Your concentration goes out the window, and you start to run in circles around the same problem or idea. Left unchecked, stress can bring your productivity to a grinding halt. But as you begin to train your mind for better self-awareness, you'll learn how to recognize when you're battling stress, and how to let it go. Deep breathing, focused mental relaxation, and a re-evaluation of priorities will help you to deal with stressful situations. And practicing these simple techniques over time will eventually help you form them into long-lasting habits. As you learn to recognize your own stress points, you'll become better at stopping stress before it can stop you from being productive.
5. Engage with others more effectively. Successful projects often depend on interactions with fellow team members, vendors and customers. By learning to embrace self-awareness, you can make the most of these interactions to increase your productivity. For example, you may realize that you send a dozen emails to your team throughout the day, when a single, concise email at the end of the day would save time for everyone. Or, you may find that when you meet with fellow team members, you tend to speak over other people instead of giving them a chance to speak as well. When you start to recognize these patterns of behavior, you can make incremental changes to improve how you interact with other people. By engaging with your team members and coworkers more effectively, you'll benefit from increased productivity and efficiency in your own work and theirs.
Where will your journey to self-awareness take you next?
Improved productivity is just one of many personal and professional benefits you'll experience when you focus on self-awareness. As you start to learn more about yourself, your personality, and your motivations, you'll be increasingly ready to embrace inspiration and creativity in your career, and in your life.
If you're interested in learning more about the power of self-awareness, or if you're ready to take your productivity to the next level:
