How Do You Actually Measure Personal Productivity?

In the industrial era, it was easy to measure an individual’s productivity at work. You looked at how many widgets they produced today versus yesterday. Today’s workplace is a different story. There are some jobs where productivity can be easily quantified while others require a more complex metric to be utilized. Every organization has its own system or process based on their desired outcomes. Still, it can be effectively measured in some way.

With all the buzz about always improving personal productivity, I started thinking: Is there an accurate way to assess personal productivity? So much of the content on the topic focuses on how to improve productivity and not necessarily on measuring improvement. It would seem to be very person specific. I did some quick research and found several suggested models and ways to assess our personal productivity, including:

• Measure it qualitatively instead of quantitatively
• Determine if you are accomplishing your goals
• Look at the increase in the number of tasks you accomplish in a fixed period of time versus another fixed period
• Evaluate process and not results, since many elements of personal productivity (i.e. relationships, mental well being, sense of accomplishment) are not easily measurable
• Your level of inner peace
• Reduction in stress from one point in time to another

In short, there is no simple way to measure personal productivity in the same way we measure workplace productivity.

So what do you do when you don’t have a tool that works the way you need it to? You make one. In my case, I created a list of questions that help me assess my productivity. I take time at the end of the day to answer one of the questions below. Then on Saturday or Sunday morning I choose several of them.

Here are some examples of those questions:

1. If someone silently followed me around today, what would they have seen as my top 3 priorities?
2. Where did I spend more of my time today… on the things that drained me or energized me?
3. What short term goals did I move closer to achieving today? Did I even think about them?
4. What new ideas to improve my work or life did I come up with today? What did I do with them?
5. Was I more proactive or reactive today?
6. In what ways did I improve my relationships with my coworker, spouse, children or extended family today?
7. How did I nurture myself as an individual?
8. What did I do today that will lessen my stress tomorrow?
9. What did I do (or NOT do) that is going to increase my stress tomorrow?
10. Who is glad that I was a part of their day?

I won’t lie. This routine was hard at first, because I didn’t always like my answers. A funny thing happened, though, as I made asking these questions a habit… I started planning differently. They became a sort of informal metric to influence my choices and actions during the day. I often think of the quote credited to Peter Drucker: What gets measured gets managed. Maybe you can measure personal productivity after all.

How do you measure your personal productivity? I’d love to hear what works for you or a question that helps you! Share your comments below.