How Do You Measure Personal Productivity?

You can measure productivity against benchmarks such as goals, work performance, income, and networks. As for tracking productivity, time logging, calculating personal productivity ratio, and determining productivity sinks are excellent options.  

Personal productivity is when you efficiently complete tasks that lead you closer to your goals while balancing all areas of your life. Productivity makes you happy and helps you complete tasks faster. Whatever your goal is, achieving it faster increases satisfaction and reduces stress. 

But how do you know that you are productive enough?

That’s why we have compiled this article for you!

You will learn why measuring personal productivity is essential, the benchmarks for measuring it, and how to track personal productivity.

Let’s dive in!

Why do you need to measure personal productivity?

Measuring personal productivity helps you identify your productivity gaps and work on them. You will improve your productivity and achieve more in the same time frame, hence reap more benefits.

Let’s look at the advantages of measuring personal productivity.

Decrease missed deadlines

Measuring personal productivity shows you why you miss deadlines. You will see the loopholes and optimize them hence accomplishing more in a short period. As a result, meeting deadlines will be manageable, and the emotional stress that comes from missing deadlines will decrease.

Avoid accumulation of tasks

Low productivity leads to the of tasks. Work backlog makes it challenging to create a strategic plan to complete tasks, leading to mental stress. You’ll know where you need to be more productive to avoid work backlog when measuring your productivity. This helps you enhance productivity and take lesser time to finish tasks.

Increase income

If low productivity affects your income earnings, measuring it will help you know how to overcome the challenge. You will learn how it affects your income-earning and how you can change. 

Alternatively, you can dedicate the additional time you get after improving productivity to creating a new revenue of income.

Reduce stress and anxiety

Measuring and enhancing personal productivity increases efficiency, reducing stress, anxiety, and burnout. You will also know what you can achieve in a particular time frame for specific tasks.

Personal growth

Measuring your productivity will help you figure out how you can complete tasks in as little time as possible. You will master time efficiency, improving self-control, focus and confidence. Consequently, you will flourish in all parts of your life.

Benchmarks to measure personal productivity against

Productivity is not quantifiable. You need something to measure it against, such as benchmarks. Let’s look at some benchmarks that can help you measure productivity.

Goals

Goals are excellent benchmarks to check your productivity. Why? Achieving goals within your set time frame means you are productive. It is important to set S.M.A.R.T. goals to increase your chances of success.

Let’s look at what S.M.A.R.T. goals are in detail:

• Specific: Specific goals are defined and precise. They outlay all the steps needed to achieve the goal and how you will achieve them.
• Measurable: Quantifiable goals help you track progress. For instance, how many words do you need to write per day to finish your article or book?
• Attainable: It is crucial to be realistic when setting goals to avoid stress. Set something you can reasonably accomplish.
• Relevant: Why are you setting those goals? Are they relevant to your future?
• Time-bound: Have a clearly-defined timeline to measure your success correctly.

Work performance

Work performance is another benchmark for measuring productivity. You can use data-driven metrics like the percentage of deadlines made or production per hour to see if you are productive. You delivered 5 out of 10 jobs with the proper deadline. It means you are 50% effective.

Professional/personal development

It is crucial to set goals that help your future development. You can use the following metrics to measure productivity:

• Books read
• Number of skills mastered
• Jobs changed
• New places visited
• Training programs followed
• Major events attended
• Salary/income

Your salary can be used as a benchmark to see your productivity, especially if you are paid per hour or task. If income is per task and your payment for one week is lower than other weeks, you were not as productive.

Network

It is challenging to quantify the value of networks or connections in your life. But it is crucial to draw up all your contacts and assess their quality. You will have a standard that will help you judge whether to increase the connection or quality of networks.

Health & fitness

Health affects your productivity and all other facets of your life. You can use the following benchmarks to see if you keep it in balance:

• Time spent walking
• Time spent sitting
• Minutes of vigorous physical activity per day
• Days of poor physical conditioning
• Diastolic blood pressure
• Weight-loss supplements taken.

Ideas to help you track personal productivity

Now that you know what aspects to assess when measuring your productivity let’s see what steps you can take to track it and eventually increase it.

Time logging

Logging time helps you track and understand your productivity because it keeps track of all personal and nosiness activities. The best way to do this is doing a seven-day time logging for the time you want to measure. 

Take notes using pen and paper or a mobile app when you start and stop an activity. Calculate your business and personal activities in as much detail as possible. Look at how long you take to pay wages, report, or account for business tasks. As for personal activities, look at the following: 

• Bathroom break period
• Coffee and lunch break periods?
• Call your friends or family on the phone?
• Watching Youtube videos
• Browsing TikTok, Instagram, or any other social media platform?

Recording these interruptions is as critical as recording the output. You will have a clear picture of how much time you waste on calls, social media, and other unimportant activities. A week of time logging will give you a jump start to improving productivity. 

Time logging isn’t just for business. If you want to learn programming in your spare time, you can create a separate time log of your productivity on certain days. Record all distractions like checking the internet, chatting, calling, cleaning up, etc. 

Calculate personal productivity ratio

After completing your 7-day period time log, the next step is to calculate your productivity ratio. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Identify the number of hours you worked in that week. This is the time you are supposed to be working towards your goals. For example, hours spent sitting at a desk to complete a novel, at the library, or in the office. 
2. Calculate the actual hours spent on productive activities. Look at all the distractions and activities and subtract them.
3. Calculate personal productivity. Hours spent on productive activities over total hours worked multiplied by 100%.

For instance, in a week, you work 40 hours. However, you spend 28 hours on distractions such as social media, emails, talking with friends and colleagues, etc. So you were only productive for 12 hours.

Here is how you’ll calculate your productivity ratio:

40/12 * 100 = 30%. It means that you were only 30% productive. 

You can create a personal productivity ratio for other goals you are trying to achieve. 

Determine productivity sinks

The personal productivity ratio is one piece of the puzzle. You need to determine where 70% of your time is going if you are only productive for 30%. Create a clear picture of the productivity pitfalls and sinks. Learn all your weaknesses to identify where you need to pull up. 

Your time log will help you identify your productivity sinks. Add all the minutes or hours spent on unproductive activities that don’t lead you to your goals. What distractions waste your time?

Look at some of the everyday productivity sinks: 

• Phone calls
• Social Media
• Family issues
• Web browsing
• Food & drink breaks
• Checking/replying to emails
• Television
• Assisting colleagues
• Online gaming 
• Socializing/Talking 

After adding up all the time spent on each, take a percentage on each. Let’s say you spent two hours out of 28 hours answering emails. Then this will be 2/28 * 100, which will kick it up to 7.1%. 

The information will help you create a great strategy to increase productivity. If you spend too much time on social media, you can install a blocker on your PC that activates when working. 

Establishing new habits will take time, but the results will last long after measuring productivity. 

Use productivity tools

There are different tools to measure your productivity instead of doing it by hand. The tools track your task and enhance productivity. Some applications help you eliminate procrastination and stay on track. 

Improve personal productivity with Iris Reading!

Measuring productivity helps you get a clear picture of your strengths and weaknesses. You will learn the specific hours spent being productive or letting yourself be distracted. With a clear picture of your week flow, you will quickly improve and know which distractions to eliminate.

Do you want to enhance your productivity?

Iris Reading offers a personal productivity course designed to boost your productivity. Whether a professional or a student, you will learn strategies to improve productivity. Our course provides a certificate of completion and the following:

• Lifetime access
• Package of 33 Instructional Videos
• Over 13 Hours of Content
• Compatibility with Mobile Devices
• BONUS! 3 FREE Webinars:
•  + Quick Life Hacks To Maximize Your Productivity
•  + Top Productivity Apps for Professionals
•  + Top Productivity Apps of Students

Take our productivity course now!