When it comes to business success, emotional intelligence beats IQ. Knowing how to manage our feelings is important. And understanding others is crucial for teamwork. In fact, managing emotions is a key leadership skill. Self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. And it should not surprise us that empathy is the cornerstone of teamwork.

Most entrepreneurs are quick to experience fatigue. It’s only natural. There are simply so many decisions to make. Anything can go wrong, anytime. And some days are plain awful. Some days you might want to shut everything down. And move somewhere and fish for a living. Or fix fishing nets.
It is the work. Being an entrepreneur is a lot of work. And everything about that work is special. You deal with countless items every day. Product, strategy, development, marketing. New markets, optimizing. Or too much optimizing.
Productivity hacks are not a cheat. Instead, think of them as an enhancement to your productivity. A regular working experience has certain limitations. Entrepreneurship does not.

As fast-paced and technology driven as the modern workplace might be, distractions and interruptions still manage to keep us still, slowing down our productivity. “Friendly” notifications that pop up everywhere and at any time, teammates who constantly ask for help or feedback, the continuous battle for balance between being able to do our job and working together with the team for a common purpose — known as teamwork — all that puts enormous pressure on our work and focus.

Team chemistry is the first to blame when it comes to team performance. You have scouted for leading talent. And you have recruited the best. Also, you have done a lot of other things.
Yet it seems that your team does not click. After all this effort, the performance is subpar. And it feels like buying a Ferrari that drives like a used Civic. What needs to change? And what can you do? Either pour more in, or try again. However, the issues remain. And there is a huge list of things to tap.
Productivity is a key issue for entrepreneurs. It has grown as an issue along with the number of startups. And the knowledge base on productivity is growing. Along with it, so is confusion. There are claims that the 6-hour workday is optimal. Others put in 60 hours of work every week and go on city breaks in weekends.
The world is crazy for enhancing productivity. Why? Maybe it’s because we’re so far from where we started. And we cannot reconcile our current success. Or maybe it is standard greed. We want more. And when you want more, you know what to do. Increase productivity. Or maybe we’re scared that in the future 80% of jobs will be lost to AI. It’s still productivity that we’ll be concerned with then.

Although we spend approximately 60% of our communication time listening, we only retain 35% of what we hear. Actually, two months after a conversation, we only remember around 25% of what was said. That’s no surprise considering our average eight-second attention span, which makes listening concentration so hard to achieve.

Photo by kyle smith on Unsplash
Productivity and being productive. It’s a modern issue. Ideas come and go. They’re a dime a dozen. Having the idea is only 1 percent of the issue. Putting the work in, that’s an entirely different matter. Getting your team to be maximally productive, even more so. It’s tougher than ever to get everything done


