2 Measurable Skills to Improve Productivity
Do not underestimate the two inborn skills
In this fast moving environment, there are simply more and more things developed in this world. There are so much for us to learn and to make sure that we do not eliminate by the society.
However, time is a finite resource. No matter who you are, we only have 7 days in a week and 24 hours for a day. And this is why productivity is always a hot topic.
Jobs are a centuries-old concept created during the Industrial Revolution. Despite the reality that we’re now deep in the Information Age, many people are studying for, or working at, or clinging to the Industrial Age idea of a safe, secure job. — Robert Kiyosaki
Although we are now moving from the industrial age to the information age, no matter what is your choice on your career, there are two skills that you should focus on to improve your productivity, which they are actionable and measurable — typing and listening. Let me elaborate more in the below.
Typing
As a human being, we come with two hands and five fingers. And we seldom aware that they are useful tools to us. In other words, we do not recognize them as a tool, we never really train them on all aspects as they are so natural to us.
More and more I believe in the fact that you have two hands and two legs, and the thing is how to make good use of yourself — and that’s about it.
— Bruce Lee
Back in the ancient time, our ancestors use pencil and paper for most of their tasks. And for now, we are living in the Information Age, we have to do most of our tasks with a computer and a keyboard. In other words, typing is an essential skill to us. And that’s why we have to train and speedup our hand speed in order to improve productivity.
Typing is a skill that could be measured as WPM — words per minutes. And there are various free online test for you to check your WPM.
It does not require a long time to do the online test, all it requires is one minute per day. And you could keep track your daily WPM to see your progression over a period of time.
Assume that you have to type 10000 words per day, let’s say you are an average person with 50 WPM. So it requires 3.33 hours for you to complete the task.
On the other hand, if you have increased from 50 WPM to 70 WPM. It only requires 2.38 hours for you to complete the task. And that mean you could save an hour of typing for other tasks.
A subtle improvement could achieve a big change in your life.
Listening
Typing is the first skill that is actionable and measurable. However, it takes a long period of time to see the improvement.
In here, the second skill that is worth mentioning is listening. It does not require as much time as typing to see any improvement. If you just start off practicing your listening skill everyday consciously. It only takes you approximately a week to see the change.
As suggested in the first paragraph, there are so much for us to learn in this fast moving environment.
And this is why we have to train our listening skill.
Nowadays, knowledge comes in digital forms. They are available all over the internet in the form of podcasts, audiobook and videos. And this is why we have to speed up our listening skill. The faster you listen, the faster you learn.
For instance, the default speed setting for these media are all x1.0. In other words, you are going to listen the media under a normal condition.
However, you could change the speed of the media to x1.25, x1.5 or x2.0. And this is why listening skill is measurable.
Let’s say there is a 30 minutes podcast that you would like to listen, if you could achieve with x2.0 listening speed, you could finished the podcast in 15 minutes.
If there are two 30 minutes podcasts that you would like to listen, with x2.0 listening speed, you could save another 30 minutes of time for other tasks.
Again, a subtle improvement could achieve a big change in your life.
Conclusion
Typing and Listening are two inborn skills for every human beings. However, we seldom aware the importance of these two skills, as we do not think that these could make a big change in our lives.
However, a subtle improvement could achieve a big change in your life.
In addition to this, they are actionable and measurable. You do not need to acquire anything or purchase anything to practice these skills. Your fingers and ears are a great tool. What you have to do is — practice consciously.
