A common goal among all professionals, especially since we were all forced to work from home, is to find ways to be more productive, and to use time in the best way to improve both professional skills and personal life.
It is that change in the rhythm of life that offered the opportunity to begin integrating more positive habits into our routines, such as: drinking more water, starting to learn a language, establishing a break time to rest, and finding ways to organize to achieve a proactive attitude and skills, to be more efficient and productive at work.
On previous occasions, we have talked about how important it is to work smarter, and not harder, since what makes the difference is knowing how to use cunning and creativity in the most appropriate way to solve problems and, at the same time, take advantage of every opportunity that life presents to improve as professionals and as people.
What Is Proactive Productivity?
Various time management techniques help open space in our lives to work on proactive productivity, however, this goes much further than that, and it is an ability that, like any other soft skill, requires dedication and commitment, for it to grow like a plant.
Proactivity is the ability to act quickly and find solutions that help avoid future complications. It is learning, developing, and putting into practice attitudes that allow us to overcome problems and act to prevent them. It is having the ability to seek solutions, moving to get things resolved, rather than waiting for problems to be miraculously fixed.
A proactive professional is easy to recognize. Do you know someone who is constantly active, participating in conferences, conventions, and talks, either as a facilitator or as a listener, and doing anything to ensure the good state of the processes? This person finds a way to make things work, and all this, using their intellect and their ability not to think outside the box, but to think about what to do with it.
For proactive people it’s not a possibility to sit and wait for things to happen by magic, they get up, take life by the antlers, and make things happen.
How Can You Be More Proactive?
In addition to having a phonological similarity, that is, they are similar words, being involved in the same field, many people tend to confuse the terms “proactivity” and “productivity“. Although they are an excellent team, and the definition of a power couple, they are exactly that, a couple, a combination, they are not synonymous.
It’s important to understand these isolated terms separately to know the best way to combine them according to your work style and needs, and thus be able to integrate them into your life to improve your professional performance, your mental health, and your self-esteem.
Here we explain in a few words what it means to be productive so that you can compare it with the previous definition of proactive, and realize that, although they work wonderfully together, one thing is not the other, nor vice versa. Read on to understand what we mean.
Productivity
This feature, this soft skill, is present in those people who perform a large volume of work in the shortest possible time, managing their energy intelligently and distributing it according to the amount of work to which they must dedicate themselves.
It is also associated with the work smarter, not harder philosophy, which suggests producing the greatest amount of work while losing the least amount of money, time, or manpower possible in the process.
A productive person exploits their potential more than the average, and not only do they give more of themselves, but they also know how to stand out for their excellence in whatever field they develop, and they have better organization management of time and their organization.
Do you see? A professional can be proactive and productive. And this combination is the favorite of any recruitment department of any company in the world. Why is it so interesting for recruitment specialists and CEOs?
Well, a professional with these characteristics is capable of predicting conflict situations, is capable of learning by themself, and loves to continue improving, increases production in a shorter time frame, and thus, brings any company one step further down the road towards success.
Now that you know how important it is to be proactive, you may ask yourself “How can I achieve it?” Do not worry. At Freelance Latin America we specialize in offering solutions. So, here you find it.
Proactivity Tips
Solution-Oriented Thinking
Currently, one of the most rejected behaviors by both employers and workers is excessive complaints. The attitude of excessively complaining, without seeking solutions, does not contribute anything to production, and detracts from the harmony of the work environment, spreading negative energy throughout the space.
This is why this characteristic is present in the core values of almost all modern companies: having solution-oriented thinking. This encourages the mind to get used to focusing on how to solve problems instead of complaining about them. Proactive people do exactly this, they look around and analyze what elements can help to solve any current problems or needs.
Self-awareness
For any type of growth, whether personal or professional, it is necessary to know ourselves well. We need to know for sure our weaknesses and our strengths, as well as our objectives and goals, to know what we must improve, where we must invest time and energy, and what to exploit to bring out our potential. Proactive people are aware of their skills and use them appropriately to bring positive things to their workplace and their professional performance.
To get to know yourself and question yourself, you can start by conducting a SWOT study, based on the premises:
- Who I am? What am I good at?
- Where do I want to go in 6 months?
- What do I need to improve?
- How can I achieve what I set out to do?
Set Working Schedules
We have written several articles on how to better allocate time to ensure that all our pending tasks are completed, and still have enough time to rest and have a personal life. You cannot be a slave to work in favor of productivity, that would only end in burn-out, the enemy of any intelligent worker.
You need to organize your schedule as it best suits your needs, and once the work and rest spaces have been established, pay attention to them and comply with them diligently. In this way, you can focus all your energy in less time and thus fulfill your responsibilities and still have space to clear yourself.
Whether you are an entrepreneur, freelancer, or remote worker, it’s important to have a healthy work philosophy, in which you do not over-demand yourself, but rather motivate yourself, inspire yourself, to be more proactive and productive, and through example, guide the rest of your team in the process of being a better professional.
Go ahead, and encourage your colleagues or company to revolutionize policies and make the environment a friendlier place for creativity and healthy excellence, understanding that it is necessary to work with cunning, find intelligent solutions, and not get involved with methods that do not work and end up losing patience and motivation to resolve the issue in the first place.
If the subject is interesting to you, we invite you to read more of our articles on soft skills, and also, be attentive to the content of our YouTube channel, where we are constantly publishing valuable and educational information for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs in search of success, like you.
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