As a soloist, it can sometimes be easy to confuse activity for productivity. Are you on track to achieve your goals this year or do you need to focus on improving your business productivity?

It’s 5.01pm on a Monday in early January. You’re on holidays sipping a beverage, enjoying a water view. You’ve got a booking for Italian at 7.30. Life is good. Then your mind drifts back to the past year. How do you feel?

When I was asked in July to work on slogans for a Christmas banner, I almost fell down the chimney. Surely ‘tis not yet the season to be thinking about Christmas? Apparently it is.

And I bet you’ve had a conversation recently along the lines of “I can’t believe it’s August already… More than half the year’s gone!!”

So how is your year going? You may have been busy, which is great. But have you have been truly productive?

Frantically crossing off the next small task on your list is easy. So, on the whole, is keeping customers happy in the short term. As difficult as it feels sometimes, simply putting your head down and ploughing through day after day of hard work is relatively straightforward.

What is a whole lot harder is escaping these short-term, low-payoff activities long enough to identify the long-term, high-payoff activities that are truly going to transform your business and life.

Want more articles like this? Check out the productivity section.

Keeping busy is easy. Improving business productivity and staying focused is hard.

Just for a moment, I suggest you try and forget today’s pressing tasks. Instead, consider the big goals you set for yourself this year. When you’re relaxing on the balcony next January, what one achievement would you most like to reflect on?

Forget the big strategic plan. Just grab a post-it note, write down the one or two big goals that you resolved to complete this year and stick them on your mirror. Then at the start of each day ask yourself what you can do to progress them a little further.

There are only two options. You’ll have them done by the end of the year or you won’t. You’ve got 158 days. As Lleyton might say ‘C’MON!’

Now’s the time to get your head down, get busy doing the stuff that matters and get focused on improving business productivity.

Are you on track to achieve your goals this year? What are you doing about it? Let us know.