I’d like to share in this post, 12 practical ideas on how to work Smarter not harder.
Do you feel like you can never overtake productivity? Do you want to be among “those” productive individuals? This short article is for you.
Things require to get done, however, you find yourself overwhelmed and sidetracked with everything that’s on your plate.
You stress about how little you’ve currently achieved. You fret about how you will ever fulfill your deadlines.
What makes “those” people so productive? Productive individuals work smarter, not harder. They turn abstract goals into concrete action results. More notably, they safeguard their time and KNOW their priorities to avoid work burnout.
How To Work Smarter Not Harder
Tip #1: Learn To Be Organized
Develop a system of organization that works for you.
Some individuals make lists, others work by diaries and calendars, while some use online apps. Whatever it is, make sure you have a system for monitoring work and deadlines that work for you.
There’s nothing even worse than remembering a job with not sufficient time to do it, or even worse, remembering it on the due date.
No one wants to stumble upon as unproductive or inefficient, and being disorganized is a significant dangerous aspect.
Read Also: How To Stay Organized At Work
Tip #2: Cut Your To-Do List
The majority of us take on too much. Or rather, most of us attempt to do too much simultaneously and then get disheartened when we don’t achieve as much as we anticipated.
The best way to work smarter is to set yourself fewer, more possible tasks.
The only method you can do this is by analyzing what you usually can complete in a day, rather than thinking today’s the day you’ll exceed with your performance.
Think little, and then, when you strike your targets pat yourself on the back and start an additional task.
By doing this, you’ll get a buzz about how efficient you’ve been which will make you desire to begin the next task, instead of feeling swamped which can reduce your performance.
Read Also: How To Write a To Do List For Maximum Productivity
Tip #3: Remove Distractions
Nothing degrades productivity like a continuous ringing phone, unimportant social media post updates, or constant email alerts.
In reality, research studies show that it takes the average human brain over 25 minutes to refocus on a job once it’s been interrupted. Crazy, right?
So shut the phone off and log out of your email when you sit down to do your important, brain-heavy work. When you resurface, whatever will be waiting for you. Guarantee.
Read Also : 3 Simple Hacks To Eliminate Distraction And Be Productive
Tip #4: Don’t Forget the 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 rule, also called the Pareto rule after the Italian economist who found it, states that approximately 80% of outcomes originated from simply 20% of efforts. This is terrific news!
It means that you can (and must to) invest more of your time on the tasks, projects, clients that truly matter. The 20% represents roughly four-fifths of your outcome.
You can double down on it and truly boost productivity as soon as you find what precisely accounts for 80% of your results.
This concept is among the outright finest methods to work smarter not harder.
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Tip #5: Use Batching
Continuously checking and responding to your email, voicemail, and other messages only disrupt your workday and your train of thought.
It can hinder productivity, especially in tasks that need innovative, ingenious, or tactical thinking.
Learn to answer incoming messages in batches, and consider inspecting them simply 2 or 3 times a day– unless keeping top of them is important to your task.
Even then, seek to schedule times to check in. otherwise, Stay clear.
Tip #6: Take Breaks
Taking breaks helps you save energy and time.
For example, in the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, there is a story of a woodcutter who continues to cut wood even though his saw keeps getting short as time passes.
According to the book, if the woodcutter took a break and used this time to hone his saw, he could finish his work in less time.
While your work may not involve any blades or saws, an unsharpened household, social, mental, and spiritual life could slow you down.
Therefore, you must spend some time off work to develop time for yourself, your good friends, and your family.
Whether at work or in school, you need to include breaks in your schedule.
Your brain can stay focused for about 90 minutes, after which you must take a break.
Take 10-15 minutes breaks after every 90 minutes will not just leave you feeling unwinded, but also revitalize your attention span and help you achieve more within a day.
Tip #7: Improve Your Time Management Skills
Time is your first and crucial resource. However, how can you do that?
Besides general advice like setting practical deadlines or preventing distractions, there are several actionable techniques you can put into practice.
Like dividing your day into distinct chunks of work with downtime breaks in between.
According to a study conducted by K. Anders Ericsson from the Florida State University, 90 minutes is the working interval more than likely to develop high efficiency in the work environment, anything above this only reducing your efficiency.
People have different time spans though for being productive.
That’s why you ought to pair this up with a set schedule. Without a clear one, you’ll end up postponing all of your activities indefinitely.
So you either divide your day into these 90 minutes or 2 different 4-hour periods in the morning and evening with one big break at midday.
If you’re a fan of shorter breaks, try the ever-popular Pomodoro technique.
The idea behind this is that operating in batches of 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break will boost your performance while keeping your creative juices flowing.
You can customize this procedure and work for more minutes or even an hour but stick to constant intervals.
Read Also: 15 Time Management Techniques To Get More Done Faster
Tip #8: Work only on today’s Important tasks.
When you do not have a priority list, it’s extremely simple to feel unfocused. What first thing do you work on? Likewise, without a priority list, we become reactive and let others dictate our schedule.
Divide a notepad into quarters and classifying tasks by level of value: today; next few days; earlier; later on. Then write out that day’s jobs on a Post-It note, and keep it in front of you.
It’s likewise useful to ask these questions when developing your task list: “What would occur if I didn’t do it? Can the time I’m investing be reduced? Can I assign it to someone else?”
Tip #9: Make A “Not-To-Do” List
We’ve all practiced long to-do lists and it’s pleasing to cross them off once a task is complete. Having a “not-to-do” list is just as crucial. For example:
- Don’t check e-mail every 10 minutes.
- Do not invest more than 10 minutes in making a decision.
- Don’t do all-nighters.
- Do not think of upcoming deadlines, simply concentrate on today’s one.
Creating restrictions and rules for yourself will enable you to be present and avoid interruptions.
Read Also:How To Stop Social Media Addiction
Tip #10: Set Clear Goals And Intentions
Knowing precisely what your short-term goals are for the day helps you prioritize your time.
Do you have a particular due date you have to fulfill? Or is someone waiting on feedback?
Setting extremely specific jobs and why they are essential will assist you to gain control of what needs to be performed in a given day.
Having a daily planner helps to organize your intentions and ideas.
Read Also: 10 Key Steps To Achieve Your Goals In 2021
Tip #11: Recognize and tackle your bad habits
All of us have bad things that affect our productivity.
Maybe you get distracted by your mobile phone, possibly it’s social media, or perhaps you are too chatty with your associates. Whatever it is that is preventing you from being productive, you’re probably familiar with it– so you should stop it.
Lock your phone into a filing cabinet until a set time to prevent temptation.
Utilize an app that prevents you from accessing social networks for several hours.
Talk to your associates and tell them not to speak with you up until a specific time since you’re on a due date. By acknowledging your bad practices, you can overcome them.
Read Also: How To Break Bad Habits
Tip #12: Knock Out Hard Tasks First
As long as the “frog” is a task and not a real frog. Plus, you will constantly end your day on a favorable note with the most gratifying task of the day.
Save the best for last and get the worst out of the way rapidly.
Many times called the “Eat the frog” idea thanks to Mark Twain stating “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and absolutely nothing worse will occur to you the rest of the day,” it works truly well.
This post was about how to work Smarter not harder.
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Ali Ounassi, Founder Of BestProductivityTips.com
