Over the last few years in the Manufacturing Industry I’ve noticed a lot of people making the same mistakes, over and over again. Not necessarily the exact same mistake but the same trend is present - for which they are running around being busy fools. Whether it’s with physical hands-on tasks or with computer based tasks there are so many people working in this industry that are running around achieving very little, but are always busy. It’s not like there aren’t a number of books, theories, methodologies that pin this industry that should be making their lives easier, right?! I often think, do they not know what the Toyota Production System is, have they never heard of Henry Ford or The New Manufacturing Challenge? Clearly this information, although it should be, is not common knowledge to most people in the Manufacturing Industry; well at least not from what I have seen.

Why are so many people extremely busy, but achieving very little?


Honestly, the answer to that question is difficult to underpin, as this doesn’t seem to just be within a specific area of the business, a specific education level or even just in the Manufacturing Industry. However, here are my opinions regardless.

Poor management

Realistically there are a lot of people within the Industry that are busy fools because of poor management. They have no time scale to complete tasks, they have no accountability for the tasks and they have little resources to help them succeed. If you don’t give people a time scale to complete their job then the job will go on forever. Just think of Parkinson’s Law for this “work will expand to fill the time allotted for its completion” and let’s be honest we have all been taught that this is acceptable. As long as you get the job done then it doesn’t matter when you completed the work. Who remembers getting an assignment at university or homework at school? I honestly don’t know anyone that got home and completed that work straight away, if you do they are the exception, most people procrastinate until the last minute then get the job done - even my mother did this with her PhD so it’s nothing to be ashamed of. The people who should be ashamed are the managers who don’t know that this theory exists because if they did they would understand that a good manager needs to trust their team enough to manage their own workload but they also need to understand the importance of accountability, goals and support. Good managers understand if their team can work autonomously or whether they need support and goals to achieve their tasks. I very rarely see this. Many times what I do see is management letting their team fail, maybe not intentionally, but they are doing. Sometimes intentionally.

Poor communication

A big one that I have found, that as a manager I have tried so hard to not end up in the trap of, is poor communication. If you don’t let your team know what the purpose or goal is then you’re not letting them know the why, which will make the prioritisation if the task is not seen as important and thus they will not focus on it. Tell when what’s going on and why you are driving in the direction you’re driving in. If you’re not a manager then ask, because nothing should be a secret or team work is impossible.

Proactive people and reactive people

A lot of people are just reactive to the chaos that is life, disaster strikes and they’re constantly fire fighting the react to that disaster; not thinking about the bigger picture, stopping to understand the problem or even taking a breath before speaking out loud. We are all suffering to get to our goals in a reactive fashion, missing the true path that we should be taking. And to be honest I’m just as guilty of this one as the next person. The phrase “follow your last order” always comes to mind when thinking about this topic. I’ve heard this phrase so many times that it’s actually quite frustrating. Now, of course if your last order is the most important and should be at the top of your priority list then absolutely reassess your priorities, but nine times out of ten your last order is a reactive solution to a problem that can wait or it is your boss screaming at your to fix something that they have caused to fail in the first place. Frustrating? Absolutely!
A proactive approach to solving problems, dealing with situations and managing work loads is not to ask how high every time someone says jump but to ask why. The simple 5 w’s that everyone should know who, what, when, where, why. Ask them, stop jumping before you know where you’re jumping to and take a proactive approach. This way you understand what is being asked, why it’s being asked and most importantly when it needs to be done. Can it wait until you’ve completed your statistical analysis or does it really need doing this second. If it does that a proactive worker will always stipulate that it will affect the current workload, a proactive worker will also understand that stopping something mid-flow will reduce productivity and in turn will require more concentration to achieve the original goal.

How to be more productive

Realistically there are lots of ways to be more productive in work but also in day to day life, it’s not about the tips and tricks that others do it’s more about what makes you work better as a person. Do you work better in the morning, evening or the middle of the day? Do you work better with physical to do lists or digital task lists?

Learn to love what you do

Rather than finding something that you love and earning money from it, you need to learn to enjoy the things that you are doing. Finding something you love that can make you money is not easy, it often needs privilege or circumstances. The easiest way is to start enjoying what you’re doing, find the purpose in the job and the hidden rewards. I like doing what I do because I like helping people. If I can take one minute everyday to help someone suceed, help someone be safer at work or even just make their job more enjoyable that I have succeeded for the day.

You need to stop saying “I have to do this” and start saying “I get to do this”

Why can’t what you be doing be fun or rewarding? If you have the privilege to live in a developed world where you get to work then you should be thankful for that and not regretful of it. If you get to do a job that's going to improve the company or help your customers then you should be thankful that you are trusted enough with the responsibility and be proud of your work.

Stop taking things so seriously

I very often have to tell myself to stop taking my work and life so seriously. Realistically it doesn’t matter how many objectives and goals you get given at work, your one and only objective is to make your boss look good. If your boss looks good and they are achieving their goals, which in turn is to make their boss look good, then you are succeeding. Stop worrying about the little unimportant aspects of the day to day and start thinking that your one and only goal is to make sure your boss doesn’t need to chase you, and ultimately if the CEO of the company is drinking their champagne then all is well.
I often worry about things not being doing “good enough” or that other people are doing things better, but honestly as soon as I remember the above I realise that as long as the company is making money and my boss looks good then it doesn’t matter if the report someone else has produced is not to my standard or production is not as organised as I’d like it to be. Are we making money? Yes. Then breathe and have fun!

To do lists

To-do lists are a waste of time, I often find myself writing to-do lists and re-writing the same actions on the to-do lists because I haven't completed the task. How do I get around this? At the beginning of the day I write down the top three priorities, these are the things I need to get done that day. Every other task I have to do is stored digitally in my digital reminders. For my personal life I use a blackboard in my kitchen for the top priority jobs and everything else lives in my apple reminders. For work I use a notepad for my top priority jobs and everything else lives in my outlook task list. All my digital task lists have reminders associated with them so I get notifications when I absolutely must do the work, but other than that unless it becomes the next priority it sits in my list until it’s required. When you have a to do list that is a page deep then you often get overwhelmed by the list and end up doing nothing because you’re looking at the list going “there’s far too much on this I’ll get to it later” or “I don’t know what to do first so I’ll procrastinate for a bit”. Plus, who has the time to keep writing the same bloody to do list over and over again? I know I don’t.

Priorities

Realistically the most important aspect of my productivity from day to day is my priority list, I don’t pay much attention to other people's priorities. I focus solely on my own; as I am the one who is making the job get done. I prioritise based on value, time, ease and complexity. I find that the most valuable tasks take the most amount of time and are the most complex to complete, where the least valuable tasks are easy and quick to complete, with very little complexity. Does this mean that smaller tasks are not important? Not at all, it just means that unless a task can be achieved within two minutes then I do not do it right away and it goes into my priority list; based on my criteria. It’s far too easy for someone to ask you to do something or answer a question that they could do themselves or research themselves, because it’s easier to get someone else to do something for you. This is understood, and often respected for the courage to ask, however if you react every time you’re asked to do something you end up being a busy fool. Doing everyone else's job or running around doing a lot to achieve very little. After all, they always say “if you want a job done ask the busy person, there’s a reason they’re busy”. Who’s the fool now? It isn’t the one asking.