Productivity advice from a 6 year old.

Recently, as I was about to leave for work, my son pulled me aside and gave me some very serious productivity advice. It got me thinking that really, this isn’t that hard. My 6 year old son gave me some pretty good advice off the top of his head when people like me and plenty of others have spilled gallons of digital ink trying to help us all figure out how to actually get things done. So I thought I would share with you some productivity advice from a 6 year old.

Now, I suspect that my son has heard me talk about quite a few different things over the last couple but I cannot remember ever specifically talking to him about things he mentioned to me. The context was, as I said, I was about to leave for work. His first piece of advice, you will see, was all about trying to get me home quicker. I told him that I thought that was really good advice. Having rushed off to tell his siblings proudly that I had told him his advice was good, he then came back to share a few more gems. So, in the words of 6 year old, followed by some of my own reflections:

1. Don’t spend lots of time talking to people and just do your work so you can come home and spend more time with your family.

This is a question of focus and priority. No one is thinking about being rude to anyone and building relationships with the people we work with is actually a really important thing to do in the workplace. It builds trust and in turn a sense of…