Productivity allows us to make progress on and complete necessary tasks. However, due to time constraints, competing responsibilities, stressors, and personal tendencies such as procrastination, we often are not as productive as we would like to be. To enhance productivity skills within the local community and assist individuals in learning strategies to maximize their time and output, especially in the workplace, the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service developed the Time Well Spent: Productivity Skills for Success program.

Because employee productivity ultimately strengthens both individual workplaces and the economic viability of communities at large, the Grayson County Extension Service offered Time Well Spent: Productivity Skills for Success. The program consisted of four individual lessons delivering objective-based learning through interactive learning activities, including Productivity vs. Procrastination, Organizing Your Time and Workspace, Establishing Priorities and Building Focus, and Work-Life Balance. During 2023, 34 participants each received 4 hours of direct, hands-on education. Participants were surveyed following the classes.

Statistically significant increases in knowledge were reported on 10 knowledge areas measured: common reasons for procrastination, strategies to combat procrastination, productive procrastination, organizing a workspace, simplifying, and maximizing time, the importance of personal and professional routines for general well-being, using an Eisenhower Matrix to prioritize tasks, improving focus, managing tasks, and setting SMART goals. Additionally, 100 percent planned to use the techniques learned to enhance their productivity replace at least one unproductive behavior with a productive one, create personal and professional productivity routines, schedule time to work with minimal interruptions, set at least one SMART goal, practice personal and professional self-care, and use tools from the program to create a healthy work-life balance.

The words of the participants, however, often speak to the success of a program. One participant shared that they would use the information to increase their productivity and that of their overall staff. Another stated that the instructor "really drove home how [their] well-being could be made better by making small changes in [their] work life and personal life." Finally, a participant remarked "this is a class you can take over and benefit [from] each time."