Are you Productive or just Busy?
Chronicles of an Afropreneur
Are you Productive or just Busy?
I was looking at a chart of the most productive countries in the world and noticed that no African country was in the top 50 despite how much hard work we put in, how long we spend working at our offices (or on our businesses) and the abundance of human capital available to us.
In many countries around the world, a longer working week does not necessarily result in higher levels of productivity.
So how exactly do we define productivity?
The economist will tell you that productivity is calculated by dividing each country’s GDP by the average number of hours worked annually by all employed citizens. Hours worked include full-time and part-time workers, excluding holidays and vacation time.
For me, and on the granular level, productivity is getting more value from your production inputs per time. How efficiently is your labour input combined with other factors of production?
The ability to produce more output, per worker, per hour is what you should keep your eye on as you all run your businesses.
US workers, altogether, earn about 23 times more per hour than Nigerian workers, because they're able to produce 23 times more output per hour. Yet Nigerian workers/entrepreneurs spend their ‘lifetime’ working and grinding.
Lastly, it is not just about producing more stuff, it's also producing higher-value products, because the higher the value of your product (in the eyes of your customers) the more you earn.
So ask yourself this question today – am I productive or just being busy?
If you learnt something new today, please share on Social media using the hashtag #UwemsMail
And Nominate me for Future Awards 2019 (for the work I have done over the years with The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme and Startups in general) - https://awards.thefutureafrica.com/nominate/. Please select The Future Awards Africa Prize For Professional Service category.
Keep Grinding,
Uwem