Key to success – Focussing on your High Payoff Activities (HPAs)

Focussing on High Payoff Activities (HPAs) means focussing on better managing time and spending significant time on the tasks that make the biggest difference. Learn about this key success concept and how to use it, and realise immediate improvements in your performance and productivity.

High Payoff Activities (HPAs) feature prominently in LMA courses. Why? Because the HPA process and associated tools help people to identify and focus attention on the things that matter – the activities that produce the greatest outcome in support of a particular goal or direction.

Through analysis and action, individuals aim to increase their time spent on HPAs to around 70-80% of their working week, eliminating work that is not high payoff in their role and produces little or no benefit to them or the organisation.

Through analysis and review, many participants are profoundly shocked to discover how little time they are devoting to the really important tasks or activities in their day – sometimes as little as 20% of their working week!

There can be a range of reasons why this happens:

• You may not know what your HPAs are to begin with or have a very different view to your manager
• You may not have sufficient opportunity to create time to focus on HPAs
• You may not have any planned "Do not disturb" time to enable focus on HPAs
• You may not give sufficient time to planning each day, instead letting the day just happen to you
• You may not differentiate between Imperative and Important tasks or be able to set priorities
• You may not understand what your time is worth to the organisation and therefore how best to use it
• Your may not be an effective delegator, instead performing lots of low payoff activities yourself
• You may let interruptions heavily influence and drive your day

Here are five tips to help you identify your HPAs and increase the amount of time spent working on them:

1. Begin by listing the work you do and the tasks you perform.
2. From the list, identify what you believe to be up to six High Payoff Activities.
3. Then discuss the list with your manager/mentor and agree or vary the list to reflect the best use of your time in the workplace in alignment with your role and workplace goals.
4. Then spend three to five days documenting the time you spend on your HPAs and the other activities in your day. The time spent is aggregated and your percentage of time spent on HPAs is calculated.
5. The analysis is then reviewed and discussed with your manager/mentor and corrective actions identified and documented.

Defining HPAs and identifying how much time is being spent on them is just the starting point. Regularly reviewing how time is being used and refocusing where necessary will ensure more effective and productive work resulting in greater return on investment (ROI), better alignment with goals and improved overall organisational outcomes.

If you believe this information would be of interest to a friend or colleague, forward this email.

‹ Back to Newsletter

Subscribe  /  Unsubscribe  /  Suggestions

You are receiving this email because you’ve been in touch with us lately, joined our mailing list, participated in one of our programs, completed a L.E.A.D. survey, or a friend/colleague thought it might be of interest to you.

Leadership Management Australasia is committed to providing relevant valuable and actionable information on an ongoing basis.

If you would like to ensure that you continue to receive The Leading Edge Newsletter on a quarterly basis subscribe here, and make sure to add our email to your address book.

If you do not wish to receive any future Leading Edge Newsletters unsubscribe here.

If you have any suggestions for future content, or comments otherwise, please let us know at TheLeadingEdge@lma.biz.

Copyright © 2010 Leadership Management Australasia

Code of Practice  |  Privacy Policy  |  Contact Us