In his book The Achiever, Dr. Jerry Bell defines a producer as someone who gets today's work done today. This definition, while straightforward, can be interpreted in various ways depending on your role within an organization. The challenge is to measure and develop this skill to become an achievement-minded leader.

To start, focus on yourself. If you find that your self-assessment reveals a low score in productivity, it’s essential to identify areas for improvement.

Five Key Areas of a Producer

1. Decision Making: Analyzing all aspects of a situation to make consistently sound and timely decisions.
2. Self-Starting: Demonstrating initiative and a willingness to begin tasks without external prompting.
3. Goal Orientation: Setting, pursuing, and achieving goals despite obstacles or circumstances.
4. Time and Priority Management: Prioritizing and completing tasks to achieve desired outcomes within set time frames.
5. Planning and Organizing: Establishing effective courses of action to ensure tasks are completed efficiently.

Focus Area: Time and Priority Management

If time and priority management is a particular area of opportunity for you, consider these ten focus areas:

1. Effectively managing difficulties and delays to complete tasks on time.
2. Managing time and priorities to meet deadlines consistently.
3. Presenting completed tasks on or before deadlines.
4. Maintaining deadlines even during crises.
5. Striving to improve prioritization skills.
6. Balancing timelines with desired outcomes.
7. Taking initiative to prioritize tasks and stay on schedule.
8. Accepting responsibility for deadlines and results.
9. Creating an environment conducive to effectiveness.
10. Reducing time spent on non-priority activities.

Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan

1. Assess Yourself: Honestly evaluate each of the ten areas on a scale of 1 to 10. Identify your three lowest scores. These are your focus areas for improvement.
2. Identify Impact: Determine which of the three lowest scores most negatively impacts your current role. For instance, if creating an effective environment (#9) is a significant issue, it may be crucial to address it first.
3. Self-Evaluation: Grade yourself on this focus area. As both the professor and the student, reflect on your current performance.
4. Observation: Spend a day observing how this focus area affects your work. Note both positive and negative factors. For example, you might find that distractions like multiple open tabs on your computer or a noisy environment hinder your effectiveness.
5. Implement Changes: Based on your observations, identify one or two changes that could improve your environment. Make these adjustments and monitor their impact over the next 10 business days.
6. Review and Reflect: After 10 days, evaluate what worked and what didn’t. List any improvements in effectiveness and put this list where you can see it regularly. Also, note any unsuccessful strategies and adjust your approach accordingly.
7. Address Challenges: Reflect on any excuses or challenges you encountered. Consider whether you blamed others or felt like giving up, and address these issues.
8. Repeat: Continue this process for 90 days.
9. Quarterly Review: At the end of 90 days, grade your progress. Assess your achievements, take pride in your accomplishments, and consider sharing your success with others. Determine if there are new areas for improvement based on your recent successes.

Achieving true accountability and success requires breaking down behaviors similarly to starting a new workout routine. Understand that initial resistance is normal as you build new neural pathways. Persistent effort and adaptation will help you master the behaviors needed for increased productivity and leadership success.