October 8, 2025 l Business Mirror
Productivity is normally measured in terms of how much can be produced in a given amount of time or how long it takes to produce or come up with a product unit. Obviously, the value of the output depends on what is the product being created. Therefore, when we measure increasing productivity, we can measure it based on the output of the same person rather than across different people across different industries.
The best way to show an improved productivity is comparing your own output over a period of time. For example, if you were a salesman selling a specific product, you were able to sell 100 units in a period of 1 month. The following year — assuming it was still the same product with the same price—you were able to sell 1,000 units in a period of 1 month, it would be safe to say that your productivity has improved quite a bit. While it is possible that external factors unrelated to your productivity could have caused unusual favorable market conditions in your target territory or location, such as there was a global conference; increasing your market by 10 times. Filtering out these events, there are some things that will definitely improve your productivity.
For most people, you can maximize your productivity through the use of these three things: smart phones; proper scheduling; and, using the right tools.
The use of smart phones is a globally-recognized phenomenon that keeps you connected, provides you with as many functions as there are apps and give you an unlimited access to information on any topic in the world. Used properly in your business or profession, a smart phone is one of the easiest ways to improve your productivity with immediate results.
Proper scheduling means doing the right things at the right time. If I leave my house at 6 a.m., I can get to work in 30 minutes. If I leave my house an hour later at 7 a.m., it will take me at least an hour to get to the office. Is it worth adjusting your time by one hour to save half an hour? To people who value their time, it is definitely worth it to save 30 minutes. Scheduling also includes doing your work in a specific area in one go. For example, your office is in Alabang and you have five big customers based in Ortigas that you need to see this week. Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to schedule visiting all those accounts in Ortigas in one go rather than going separately each day of the work week?
Using the right tools is another sure way to improve your productivity. I have seen gardeners cutting grass using manual garden shears taking two hours to cut the grass. That same gardener in the same garden using a light-duty battery-powered grass cutter would take an hour to finish the job. Moving another notch higher using a gas-powered grass cutter could get that job done in 30 minutes. A gas-powered lawn mower would cut this time down to only 15 minutes!
Productivity comes at a price of training on how to use the tools and equipment to get the job done faster and more efficiently; the other one is the cost of either buying or renting the equipment. Once the time of a worker is more expensive than the cost of the machinery and equipment, it makes more sense to improve the productivity of the worker.
However, this is not always the case when the cost of labor is so low there is no incentive to improve labor productivity. Whenever you have the chance to maximize your productivity, you should do so even at the cost of training or acquiring the proper tools of the trade yourself. Think of this as investing in your future.
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email georgechuaph@yahoo.com. Photo is from Pinterest.