Have you ever found yourself feeling overwhelmed with the amount of work you have to do? Do you worry that you’re not making the most of your time, especially at work? Relax, you are not the first person to feel this way too. And there is always a way to increase your productivity amidst all this.
First, know that you may feel so because you have not been working smarter but only harder all this while. Working smarter, not harder, is a term used to describe a mindset of optimising efficiency and productivity without overworking yourself. By working smarter, not harder, you can increase your productivity without even burning out.
This article will provide tips and techniques on how to work smarter, not harder, and maximise your productivity without sacrificing your mental or physical health. So, let’s get to it.
What does “Working Smarter; Not Harder” Mean?
Working smarter simply means being able to figure out your strengths and weaknesses at work and focusing your energy on your stronghold to get your work done more efficiently. Working smarter is a flexible mode of work that requires less time to do the right thing at the right time. But working harder takes a lot of time doing a lot of things.
This mode of work includes the adoption of creative ways into getting things done and prioritises quality and goal delivery. Although, working hard is quite the opposite. And it usually rates quantity more and uses a one-way approach to get work results. The biggest benefit of working smarter than harder is that it maximises time and helps you increase productivity without letting you burn out at work.
Tips on Working Smarter to Increase Productivity Without Burning Out
- Use pen and paper: A good way to run from social media notifications and distractions is going the traditional way of documenting and ideating. You get to increase your focus at work and boost productivity by spending less time away from your social-media-connected devices and computers at work.
Even if you are a social media manager, you should schedule the necessary amount of time for your online engagement and presence. Using pen and paper for ideation usually gives birth to more natural and fresh ideas than using digital tools.
- Schedule your time: Access your work realities and decide the best to do each of your recurring tasks and work assignments. Some work may come easier to you than others. Simultaneously, some tasks may normally prove stubborn and play hard-to-get-done on you.
You should evaluate all these differences and set a fitting time to get them done. For your hard tasks, you can schedule them for the time you have the largest burst of energy and work ease, for any time of the day. Then, you can set your easy-to-do tasks for other times apart from your ace work time of the day.
- Avoid multitasking: Splitting your focus among various work activities is a sure way to get burned out easier and even faster. And you don’t want to be that professional that gets less done by working aimlessly hard without working smartly. Channelling your energy into one task at a time makes you get things done more efficiently without wasting unnecessary time or getting burned out.
- Plan for breaks: Another easy way to get burned out is to work tirelessly without breaks. But first, working smarter boils down to self-evaluation. You must know what works for you and not just what is working for your work colleague or close friends.
For example, taking a 5-minute break after each hour of work may help you increase productivity by refilling your energy timely. But a 10-minute break may be too long for your focus and you may get distracted when you take these long breaks. Therefore, to increase your productivity and work smarter, you must consider taking short and realistic breaks amidst your working hours.
- Organise tasks properly: Sometimes, working on tasks of similar nature makes you save time and energy at work. How? You don’t need to spend extra mental effort on switching to different modes of work because of your varying and disjointedly organised tasks.
A quick instance, you may have emails to read, email writing to do, meeting schedule, calendar marking and meeting correspondence tasks to do. Always try to organise your similar tasks to close the time of execution. This way, you can quickly get things done efficiently with less mental back and forth to different activities.
- Learn more: Just like this article is teaching you how to work smarter and not just harder, there are several other similar works on our website for you. Right there, you get to learn more about productivity tips and see our services specially tailored to help you stay ahead at work and increase productivity.
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