Multiple Streams of Productivity

Written by Dave Navarro on June 8, 2006

I briefly mentioned “multiple streams of productivity” in an earlier post, and I’ve received a few emails from people asking to know more about it, so that’s what today’s post is all about.

What is productivity anyway?
You can define productivity in a lot of ways, most of which boil down to “getting things done.” But the “things” you’re getting done could be anything - and activity is not the same thing as accomplishment.

For the purposes of simplicity in explaining Multiple Streams of Productivity, we’ll define productivity as “making rapid progress on your goals.” I say rapid because it’s just the basic mindset of productivity - you want to get to where you’re going in a relatively fast (if not the fastest) manner.

You can make rapid progress on your goals in four ways. Let’s take a look at each of them and some examples of each.

The First Stream - Personal Productivity
The first stream is what I’ll call personal productivity. This is basically the art of doing things yourself. There are a lot of things that you - and only you - should be doing.

For example, when it comes to building my blog, I’m the only one I want writing my articles. I’m building myself as a brand. It’s just something I have to do for myself. My productivity hinges on how good I am at a given task and how much focus I put into it. Naturally, I want to make the most of this type of productivity. I’ll elaborate in an upcoming article, so bookmark this one to see when I link to it.

The Second Stream - Delegated Productivity
If you’re proactive enough to ask the right kind of questions, you’ll find ways to delegate some of the tasks you’re doing now to other people. How do you know what you can delegate? The answer is pretty much everything. Despite your initial feelings, you’re not the only one in the world who can do what needs to be done to make your projects and goals work out.

It’s challenging to do at first, but delegating as much as you can is actually pretty liberating. You don’t have to do everything “perfectly” yourself. In reality, there are a few core skills that make up the “best of you.” They are the skills that define you as a person and, if you run a business, are the driving force for your success.

The more you can delegate to other people, the more you can focus on improving the “best of you.” For example, I used to think I had to become the master marketer to get my coaching and public speaking business off the ground. I spent a lot of time working on improving my copywriting skills and marketing skills, and while that helped, I eventually realized it wasn’t the “best of me.”

Once I realized I was in business to help people through coaching and speaking, I understood that my focus had to be in constantly refining my skills in those areas. More and more, I’m outsourcing marketing-related functions like copywriting and list building.

If the idea of outsourcing scares your wallet, keep in mind that there’s a thriving barter market out there. You’re in business because you provide something of value. Leverage that to barter with other people to get the tasks that don’t fall into the “best of you” category.

Leveraging this stream of productivity requires stepping out of your comfort zone, but it’s a tactic that pays for itself almost immediately. Don’t pass it up.

The Third Stream - Viral Productivity
The more I use the web, the more I love viral productivity. This is basically the concept that you can find ways to cause people to want to do work for you - and better yet, find more people to join the effort.

Affiliate marketing is the prime business example of this. It’s not delegaing, because you’re not trading a straight value - “You do this for me, and I’ll do this for you.” Affiliate marketing leverages excitement because a reward is directly tied to virally marketing the product to prospects and sub-affiliates.

But that’s not what defines viral productivity. This type of productivity leverages value-sharing - the concept that people will actually enjoy part of the process of helping you out. On social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, digg and reddit, people share stories like wildfire because they love to pass it around.

And we’ve all witnessed people crawling out of the woodwork to spread the news about helping a good cause. There’s an angle that makes your goals a good cause as well. You’ve just got to find it. Brian Clark makes an excellent point of this on Copyblogger.

Now keep in mind that you don’t approach viral productivity from a “what’s in it for me” perspective. It’s all about engaging others and giving them value - whether it’s something tangible or just a feeling - simply by being a part of the process.

That’s one of the ideas behind the “Drive My Blog!” section I include in my email newsletters. By giving people the opportunity to tell me what their pressing issues are, I get a stream of relevant article topics that I know people want. It’s win-win. I don’t have to wrack my brains to think of topics, and people get the advice they need.

Another example is how online forums work. You post your questions or needs there and people love to help you out, because everybody helps each other in communities like these (Well, not everybody, but enough people, anyway).

The forums I use to leverage viral productivity are:

• Turning Ideas Into Dollars
• Self-Starters Weekly Tips
• Total Life Success

I’m telling you about them because they’re such good forums, I want to give them some viral productivity in return by being part of the process of getting the word out about them.

One other important thing about forums - you get what you give. The reason I get help is because I give it. That’s what a community is about. Hold to that example, and you’ll be pleased with your results as what goes around, comes around.

The Fourth Stream - Strategic Productivity
This stream is the last I’ll describe, but it’s the most important one of all. This is the stream where you step back from all the other streams and ask yourself, “How can I do this better and faster?” It’s where you improve your strategies so you can get stronger results from what you’re already doing.

And that’s really the heart of Million Dollar Leverage - it’s not “constant, neverending improvement” - instead, it’s a constant refining of tactics. You don’t have to get 500% better at a skill if you can find an easy way to delegate the work to 5 people. You get the idea.

The sad truth is that most people will never leverage this fourth stream of productivity, and then they’ll be left wondering why they have such a hard time with everything else. But, if you’re reading this far, I think you’re one of the people who can appreciate this & put it to use.

If you do, please send me an email at dave@davenavarro.com. I’d love to hear how you’re benefiting from it.

So that’s it - hopefully you know all about the “Multiple Streams of Productivity.” You heard it here first, so make good use of it. And make time to get to that fourth stream of productivity right now - you’ll thank yourself for it.