The 3 most important productivity rules and their psychological keys

It is well known that in the workplace and business, the term "productivity" is one of the most important and used; After all, it is one of the main indicators that show the good or bad performance of any system that generates goods or services: whether it is an organization or a private worker together with their materials.

However, it is of little use to estimate to what extent we are being productive if we do not know the main psychological phenomena involved that explain our success or failure in trying to reach the goals that we have set ourselves in this aspect.

Fortunately, there are already several principles that can help us when it comes to optimizing work processes; in this article we will see some of them, through a review of the most important productivity rules.

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What is productivity?

In economics, productivity is the relationship between the total productive activity and the means or resources invested to achieve said activity in a given period

, taking into account the measurement of the quality of what is produced.

These resources can be of different nature and measured according to different factors, such as the time invested, in the case of personal productivity or, in the business environment, depending on the workers, natural resources, infrastructure or capital necessary to achieve a certain activity productive.

Productivity is, therefore, a necessary indicator to know if the viability of the productive activity is higher or lower. The more resources used to produce X quantities of product in a period, the lower the productivity, and vice versa.

This general indicator serves, in turn, to estimate the exact productivity of each worker, each machinery or each portion of cultivated land, a much-needed information used by companies and workers to improve their job performance and detect failures in certain parts of the work sequence job.

What are the main rules of productivity?

Experts in different disciplines have raised over the last century the existence of a series of principles or regularities that govern the productivity of any type of entity dedicated to work.

These are the so-called productivity rules; Knowing them is of great help to enhance aspects such as efficiency when working and even to generate a good work environment thanks to good time management.

These rules are usually expressed in a simple way, practically in the form of aphorisms, and can be considered advice to apply not only in formal work but in any human activity, in which we apply effort, resources or even investments.

However, beyond their appearance of belonging to the world of logic, they describe material realities. Here we will know the 3 most notable ones: the Pareto principle, Parkinson's law and the two-minute law.

1. Pareto principle

"20% of the actions give 80% of the results."

The Pareto principle was enunciated by the Italian economist and philosopher Vilfredo Pareto in 1907, and he postulates that greater results can be obtained by investing less time and fewer resources. This implies, among other things, that putting more money and resources into an activity does not have to translate into a significant improvement, and that many times it is relatively easy to obtain much better results without spending more.

This advice can be very useful for workers who want to improve their productivity in a crisis context in which it is necessary cut budgets, and emphasizes that better planning during the day and spotting efficiency errors is key code. Although it is paradoxical, keep spending is the easy solution, because we have already been working like this and at the present moment we are imbued with the inertia of habits.

• You may be interested in: "Fear of losing your job: coping strategies"

2. Parkinson's law

"The work is expanding until it occupies all the available time."

This law was enunciated in 1957 by the British historian Cyril Northcote Parkinson and states that each job is usually carried out based on the time one has available.

This means that if we have little time to carry out a task, we will finish it in less time; and if, on the other hand, we have more time, we will finish that work in a longer time.

Our way of working adapts to our perception of the working day. Taking this into account can help us improve time management and better organize the calendar. For example, one of the implications of this law of productivity is that it is almost always better to have many simple short-term goals than a general medium or long-term goal, since in the first case we will be creating a context that predisposes us to make good use of all the time available for the final objective.

3. Two minute law

"If it's quick, do it now."

Productivity consultant and expert, David Allen, is the creator of the “Getting Things Done” productivity method, where he raises this and other highly useful precepts. Undoubtedly, a very necessary precept especially for people who must carry out multiple tasks of different nature during their working day. It has a lot to do with self-motivation and with work strategies designed to combat procrastination: downtime has a lot of potential, it is not an excuse for doing nothing.

Are you looking for professional psychological assistance?

If you are interested in having psychological assistance applied to the world of work performance or stress management linked to your projects, I encourage you to contact me. I am a psychologist specialized in the cognitive-behavioral model and I have been working for many years both for individuals and for professionals and companies as a consultant. I offer my services in person in Madrid, and also online.

Bibliographic references:

• Allen, D. (2001). Getting Things Done. London: Penguin Books.
• Woodcock, K. (2010). Safety Evaluation Techniques. Toronto: Ryerson University