Productivity Courses

What does it mean to be productive? Our working definition of productivity is ‘doing the right thing, in the right way, at the right time’, and our productivity courses aim to support just that.

Productivity Principles Courses

One-day workshops covering core productivity skills, such a delegation, being a productive leader, working flexibly and navigating work-life challenges.

Bite-sized Productivity Courses

A series of 90mins sessions, perfect for ‘Learn at Lunch’ events or run as a webinar for distributed teams.

The modern professional is bombarded with demands on their attention and their problem-solving, from the moment they wake up until the very end of their evening.

Productivity isn’t necessarily about doing more, but more about doing more of the right things, at the right time and in the right way. Our courses emphasise a move away from ‘busy’ – where stress is common and reactive is the norm – to ‘productive’, where proactivity guides our focus.

Knowing how to make best use of our time, attention and energy is core to our approach to productivity training. Additionally, proactively paying attention to the interface with our work and personal roles and responsibilities can contribute to a more meaningful and productive existence.

Our productivity courses focus on key productivity skills that can be deployed in virtually any work environment. Course contents are based on principles, not inflexible processes or rules, so delegates can make them work for them, whatever the constraints of their role or organisational culture. We also highlight the skills required for navigate the work-life interface, which has been complicated by flexibility, technology and globalisation.

Productivity Principles

These day-long workshops emphasise the practical application of psychological science in getting more of the right things done.

Pillars of Productivity

Our flagship productivity workshop, ‘Pillars of Productivity’ is based on a set of crucial principles that anyone can adopt and adapt to their own working environment. The workshop emphasises self-awareness, alongside prioritisation, pragmatism and effective processes. Delegates will leave with a workable plan to implement upon their return to work, with clarity on why they want to be productive and the goals they’ll achieve once they’ve implemented their new approach. Click here to learn more.

Making Flexibility Work

One trend that marks out 21st century working practice is an increase in flexible working arrangements. This workshop explores how to get the best out of flexible working whether it’s Flexi-time or location-independent working. To ensure these arrangements generate the expected benefits takes planning and forethought. This workshop explores how to remain productive while working flexibly, how to manage relationships and others’ expectations and how to avoid overwork and stress. Delegates will leave the workshop with a plan to improve their flexible working logistics, productivity and focus.

Delegate for Success

Delegation is a crucial organisational skill and we look at it from a holistic perspective. We emphasise the need to plan, to understand the people you’re delegating to and to engage in effective monitoring of delegated tasks and projects. We explore the psychology of what prevents us from delegating and how to overcome this. Delegation requires clarity of priorities, trust in those being delegated to and a sense of purpose. Delegates leave this course with increased self-awareness and an action plan for delegation they can put into practice immediately.

Productivity for Leaders

Organisational leaders face unique productivity challenges, with a need to delegate elegantly, consider the longer term in balance with the short-term goals and regular pressure on their time when it comes to people management and development. We also know that leaders frequently act as role models in terms of working style and decision-making. Our workshop gives leaders the tools they need to increase their focus, their efficiency and their effective prioritisation for them and others.

Work-life Fit - develop your work-life toolkit

The interface between work and home can be a source of immense stress. Especially when we view it as a competition between work and home or striving for a perfect balance between the two. However, when we instead work on navigating the challenges and design a work- life fit around our job and our personal life, we can leave behind outdated notions of ‘balance’ and engage with our multiple life roles and the work they bring with them in a much more successful and dynamic way. Delegates will leave this workshop with an understanding of their preferred work-life style, tactics and techniques for minimising unwanted ‘overspill’ from one domain to the other and a plan for implementing a work-life fit that is unique to them.

Bite-Sized Learning

Productivity Essentials

Bite-size learning to boost your productivity

Our ‘Productivity Essentials’ sessions over the basics of everyday productivity skills, focusing on how to get the maximum return from small changes to our thinking and behaviour. They’re perfect for ‘lunchtime learning’ slots or for inclusion in an offsite, away day.

These 90-minute sessions are impactful and minimise delegates’ absence from the workplace. For geographically-distributed teams, we can run our Productivity Essentials workshops via webinar.

Productivity 101

Productivity advice is ubiquitous, but also far too generic to be useful. Books and courses tend to focus on ‘one size fits all’ solutions that clearly don’t fit anyone 100%.

This workshop focuses on establishing what it is to be productive for you, in your work context. We explore the common productivity traps we can fall into, we cover the benefits of planning and how to create an impactful and efficient productivity workflow that suits your working style.

Priorities 101

With demands for our attention coming from all directions, understanding where we should direct our attention and energy is a critical skill. If we don’t set our own priorities, someone else will! So this workshop focuses on both the tactical, day -to-day prioritisation of tasks, but also the strategic prioritisation of how we invest our limited time, attention and energy.

The Proactivity Habit

We all procrastinate from time to time, pushing important tasks into tomorrow, for our future selves to deal with. It’s an unproductive and unsustainable habit, yet we can easily keep telling ourselves that it’s not a problem!

This workshop is designed to give delegates the skills required to replace procrastination with a proactive perspective. We look at the root cause of procrastination and how to persist at tasks through to completion – despite how we feel about them.

Delegation Essentials

A core skill for team leaders and managers, delegation frees them up to focus where their skills and experience are best used. However, delegation can either be ignored as an option or poorly executed while we’re stuck in the habit of ‘busy’. This workshop explores what prevents us from delegating and shares a simple but effective approach to identify work to be delegated, while also considering who to delegate it to.

Flexible Working 101

With so many workplaces offering flexible working arrangements, it’s also important to recognise that not everyone thrives on flexibility. This workshop has been designed to ensure that employees can keep their focus and output maintained while working to different schedules, in different office locations or even different cities. We explore the psychological and behavioural habits than ensure team members remain effective while working flexible.

Working at Home 101

The present COVID-19 pandemic has led to millions to employees moving to home-working, at short notice and with very little preparation. This session has been designed to cover the essentials of home working, to support employees to maintain their focus, while also nurturing their wellbeing. We’ll cover the practicalities of home-working, the importance of communication and the benefits of routine and structure, so the focus can be on outputs – not where the work takes place.

Work-Life Integration 101

The flexibility and demands associated with modern working life mean that we can easily fall into habits that skew our focus – leaving some of the roles we occupy in life unfulfilled and ignored. There is no balance to be achieved, merely the successful navigation of ongoing challenges. This workshop takes a fresh look at ‘work-life balance’ and offers an alternative perspective for 21st century professionals: integration of professional and personal roles, in a healthy, productive and sustainable way.