Every day, people are working harder and harder to get the same result. They feel like they’re not measuring up to their peers, while simultaneously working more hours than they want to.
Working hard is necessary but it’s not enough. Working smart is the key to creating amazing results.
This article shows you 20 practical examples and tips you can use to work smarter not harder—and come up with better ideas in less time. With just a little bit of effort, you can have a much more fulfilling career and experience life a lot more.
But first, let’s learn why “work smart not hard” should be your mantra.
Detriments of Working Too Hard
Many people (bosses included) equate hard work with working long hours, coming in early, staying late, working through lunch, coming in on weekends.
This willingness to put in more time is often seen as a strong work ethic. In reality, working longer hours doesn’t automatically equate to getting more done, or producing better quality results. It can actually be detrimental to your health and wellbeing, which results in poorer productivity and results.
Mental Health
Kathleen Doheny, writing for WebMD, says studies show that putting in long work hours raises the risk of not only diabetes, abnormal heart rhythm, heart disease and stroke, but also psychiatric disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and depression.
PhD psychologist Bryan Robinson says work can grip you and take over your life, with debilitating effects similar to addiction. When you can’t turn off from work, it can lead to health and relationship issues.
Heart Health
How high are the risks of working hard with long hours? A recent French study of almost 150,000 participants showed a 29% greater risk of stroke from working ten hours or more for 50 days a year – not even full time, just one fifth of your annual work hours.
An even bigger study of more than 600,000 found similar results. Disruption of sleep, higher incident of accidents, mental health issues, poor work-life balance, lower work productivity and job satisfaction are other difficulties stemming from working long hours associated with “working harder.”
20 Practical Work Smarter Not Harder Examples and Tips
1. Stop multitasking and focus on one thing at a time
Why you should stop multitasking:
- Splitting your attention over many tasks leads to ineffective work
- If you are in meeting or in conversation, you may miss the important points
- You are more likely to make errors while multitasking
Benefits of focusing on one thing at a time:
- You process your task at hand much faster, since you are giving it 100% of your focus
- As you focus on only one thing, the probability of errors decreases as well.
2. Take more breaks
When we are too focused on a task, we tend to forget to take breaks. Our brains get tired and distracted without real breaks.
If the task is large, try to split it into smaller, manageable subtasks. By doing so, you can take breaks after each subtask is completed instead of working non-stop to complete a large task.
Pomodoro Technique and Flowtime are great ways to remind yourself to take breaks.
3. Never start your day without a plan
One of the productivity techniques that works extremely well for me is to plan what I want to complete for each day. I start the day by putting 3-5 most important tasks on my to-do list.
By doing so, I will know what I need to complete within that day and less likely to get distracted on other things. Sometimes, unexpected and unplanned tasks will show up and throw you off your schedule. Make sure that you complete at least 3 most important tasks while bringing forward the rest for the following day.
4. Batch similar tasks together
Whether you are writing a report or compiling your expenses, there’s a certain set-up time required to get into the mindset of writing a report or compiling your expenses. You need to remind yourself how the systems work, line up the right documents on your screen or get the paperwork in front of you. This set-up time can hinder your productivity or even result in procrastination.
There are many ways to work in batches. Here are a few suggestions:
- Put all the documents you need to file into a tray on your desk. Do your filing only when that tray is full.
- Save up invoices that you need to pay and do them once a week or once a month rather than as they arrive.
- Turn on your email, process it to zero, then turn it off again.
- Buy things in bulk
- Set up meetings and schedule travel at the same time each day.
5. Track Your Energy & Find Your Most Productive Time of Day
There’s a specific time of the day when you have the highest levels of energy, focus and motivation, and that will enable you to perform at your best. If you’re trying to work against your body, when your energy levels are low, then any task will take double the time to complete.
So the next question is: how do you identify your biological prime time so that you can reap the benefits of it?
The best approach is to track your energy levels for a certain period of time to identify the peaks and lows. You can use Excel or Google spreadsheet to record all the data every hour.
You’ll rate your energy levels from one to ten, with one being low and ten being high with regards duration. It’s up to you, but it’s probably worth doing it for at least a week or two if you want to get the accurate data.
Once you have done this, you will know when to schedule your most important tasks around your peak hours to improve your productivity and performance.
6. Shorten your to-do list
Everybody is over-optimistic about their productivity at the beginning of the day and tends to have the to-do list as long as possible. Long to-do list is intimidating. If you cannot complete all of them, you will feel demoralized.
So keep your list as short as possible. The best is to have 3 most important tasks in your to-do list. Will you complete them all within a day? Most likely. In addition to completing these three important tasks, you may still have spare time for other tasks – and other tasks are your bonus.
7. Turn off notifications
You know notifications are very distracting but you still keep them on. Why? You don’t want to miss the important news or emails. It’s good that you keep yourself abreast of what is happening. However, most notifications are useless and only serve as distractions.
If you cannot turn off notifications completely, you can try the options below:
- Only turn off notifications when you need to be the most focused
- Set a different tone for different app notifications. That way, you don’t need to look at your phone and still know what notifications are coming.
You also can use apps to block notifications such as Freedom and AppBlock.
8. Set up a Pomodoro timer
This is the technique that has been mentioned over and over by popular productivity gurus. You set a Pomodoro timer to 25 minutes for each task and take a 5 minutes break after completing each task. If the task is big, break it into smaller chunks and complete each chunk in a block of 25 minutes until you complete the task.
Pomodoro technique may damage your productivity in the way that the timer can interrupt you when you are very engaged in the task. If you find Pomodoro technique doesn’t work for you, you can use Flowtime technique instead.
With the Flowtime Technique, you focus on one task at a time and then take breaks when necessary so you achieve a balanced workflow.
Use a stopwatch to keep track of how long you work on each task and take breaks accordingly. For example, if you work for 25 minutes, take 3 minutes break, if you work for 40 minutes, take 5 minutes break, if you work for 80 minutes, take 10 minutes break. The duration of break is up to you.
If you want to learn more about Flowtime technique, Zapier has a very good article about this subject here.
9. Whenever possible, automate
Find out repetitive tasks that you have to do over and over and see whether you can automate those tasks. The following simple tasks can be automated by using tools and apps:
- Automatically fill in forms or login to a frequent website using LastPass and RoboForm.
- Scan documents using Scanbot or CamScanner
- Proofread your documents using Grammarly
- Send out mass emails using Merge Tools
And many other tasks!
10. Build a good morning routine
Every successful person has a successful morning routine. They know how to optimize their morning routine to maximize productivity, efficiency and ultimately happiness. The good news is, it is not hard to follow. Put in some effort and you can build your own successful morning routine.
You can start your simple morning routines as follows:
- Wake up early (this is the hardest part!)
- Have a warm glass of water right after you wake up
- Meditate for 5 to 10 minutes
- Do some workout
- Cook a good and healthy breakfast
Remember to leave out your phone – unless you use it for timer or listen