Manage Your Life with Outlook®: for Dummies®

Chapter 2. Exploring Accepted Beliefs on Personal Productivity

It's now time to examine the philosophical underpinnings of personal productivity. In this chapter, you get a chance to review the major qualities that most people, both amateur and professional, believe are essential to achieving peak personal productivity.

Before getting into the specific beliefs outlined in this chapter, you may want to take a moment to see how you do with the following true or false statements. Responding to these statements can give you a rough idea of your current viewpoint on what it takes to be productive. So, true or false,

• I must be an organized person if you want to become a productive one.

• Clutter in my physical environment always makes it harder for me to be productive.

• The ability to effectively prioritize my obligations is one of the most important ingredients of organization.

• Only workers who know how to manage their time effectively are productive.

• Effective planning is a vital component of personal productivity.

• The ability to multitask (deal with more than one task at a time) is essential to reaching peak personal productivity.

• Maintaining flexibility and remaining resilient are key qualities of a highly productive worker.

• Creating and adhering to a workflow diagram is a major factor in reaching peak personal productivity.

• Taking the time to set weekly/monthly objectives and goals for yourself is a major factor in maintaining peak personal productivity.

• Doing a regular (weekly/monthly) review ...