How to Work Smarter Not Harder

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“You need to work smarter – not harder!”

*frustrated silence*

How many times have you heard this?

Lots I imagine.  It’s the kind of quick-fire, hollow-as-hell, solution dished out the world-over by many an over-zealous line manager, parent or annoying colleague.

But, has anyone actually taken the time to explain to you what they actually mean by this? And, more’s the point, told you how to do it?!

No?

Thought not.

Well, hold your horses, because we’re going to run through some tried and tested techniques to help you get your ‘smarts’ in order.

‘Work Smarter Not Harder’ Meaning

Some folk like to parcel the concept up into some mystical spell that can only be understood at midnight, whilst standing on one leg, clutching a four-leaf clover and howling at the moon. In other words, they want you to believe that there are only a handful of special people who really undestand what it means.

Thankfully, nothing could be further from the truth.

The actual meaning behind ‘work smarter not harder’ is incredibly simple:

achieve more by doing less.

Or, in other words:

be more efficient. 

Simple!  Right?!

Hmmm.  If that were the case you’d be doing it already and not feeling overworked and burnt out.

Thankfully, there are steps that you can take.

Pens at the ready? Let’s read on.

How to Work Smarter Not Harder

1. Focus and Dive in Deep (like really, really, really deep)

Many of us feel overworked and overwhelmed with what we have to get done. The theory of multi-tasking has now pretty much been consigned to the scrap heap, and instead we all know that we need to focus on one thing at a time.

To really work smarter, and not harder, you actually need to go further than this.  Not only do you need to work on one thing at once, you also need to drastically trim down the goals on your plan or the items on your to-do list.

In other words: do less but do it better. To a much higher standard in fact.

Take your time, develop your skills, sweat over the details and refine, refine, refine. Although the initial task might require a little more up-front investment than you would usually expend, the pay-off in the long-run will be substantial.

Be Utterly Ruthless

In addition, make sure that you are ruthless with your priorities.  Small, menial tasks stroke your ego, but they are a significant drain on your productive time.  When you’re struggling with work it’s easy to resort to getting ‘quick’ jobs done, crossing them off your to-do list in an ego-boosting flourish.  It makes you feel good.  However, this is actually a form of procrastination. This behavior keeps you from dealing with the most important tasks.   You need to focus on the high-priority items and abandon those that are merely ego-pleasing but have no impact whatsoever.

Want to hear more? Take a read of this article by Professor Morten Hansen, who gives research-based guidance on boosting performance.  His top tips?

• “Pursue the extreme few. The first part of the “do less, then obsess” principle is about ruthless prioritization. You can only become great if you choose to focus on very, very few things at work.
• Cut wasteful meeting time, and then obsess. The second part of the principle is to go all in on the few priorities and do them exceptionally well. But you can’t do that if your daily life is filled with all sorts of busywork. You must free up time.
• By doing less and obsessing, you focus your efforts on a few tasks—and thus save time. You can reinvest that saved time in work (like a business reinvesting its profits into the business) or you can spend some of that saved time on outside personal and family time (like a business paying a dividend to shareholders). Split that saved time: Obsessing to excel requires you to reinvest some of that saved time into work, yet some of it you can spend outside of work.”

Source: mortenhansen.com

2. Improve Your Competence

To be more efficient you need to be more proficient.  In other words, you need to improve your skills. Have you ever noticed how longer serving, more experienced colleagues can get things done faster? Essentially, this is what we’re talking about.

However, don’t simply wait for time to pass in order to enhance your skills and experience.  Actively invest in your own professional development – read books, attend training events and courses, find a mentor or a coach. Invest the time upfront to accelerate your progress. Not only will this impact positively on your ability to work smarter not harder, it’s also a great way to accelerate your career.

Make sure that you are specific about the things that you want to improve. Choose a particular skill or task that you want to get better at and double down on this.  Ask for feedback from colleagues, write a reflection journal, look for every opportunity to learn and develop.

3. Be the Master of Your Time

Time is the most precious commodity that we have control over.  Once it’s gone, it’s gone.  Thankfully, we can all do more to protect the limited resource that we have.

This needs conscious effort but you can manage your own time with razor-sharp efficiency if you try really hard.

In a nutshell, this is about embedding new habits.  For example only have a maximum of two tabs open on your computer at any one time, only check emails at designated times during the day, totally forget about social media during the working day.

Every time you break your thought processes to take a quick dive into something else which is off-task, you have to rewind a little.  You might only look at something for 45 seconds, but you then have to go back and recap on what you were working on.  Do this several times an hour and it can be a major cause of inefficiency.  Multiply this by a more meaningful period of time and the impact can be staggering.

Use tools such as the Pomodoro Technique or the Pareto Principle to really help you double down. You’ll surprise yourself by how much you can really get done.

Related: The Pomodoro Technique: How to Get Things Done When You Don’t Know Where to Start

Realted: How To Instantly Transform Your Life with the Pareto Principle

4. Find Your Passion and Purpose

UC Berkeley Professor Morton Hansen in his book, Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More, outlines the key behaviors practiced by the highest performers.  Those at the top of their game not only feel a deep sense of passion for their endeavors, they also have a clear sense of purpose. In other words they love what they do and they know why they are doing it.  Having this clarity creates energy and instills a deep motivation and desire to perform.

“Hang on a minute!  My job just ain’t that sexy!”

OK. At face value, it might seem pretty difficult to secure passion, value and satisfaction in some jobs. However, Hansen found that highly effective people were able to derive a sense of purpose from their role regardless of what they were doing.  The key to this? Well, it’s about how you add value to the lives of others; less about what the job actually is, and more about the impact that it has.

Hansen reports that some people are motivated by achievement, others by creativitiy and solving complex problems, some just love working as part of a team, some are keen to improve their knowledge, others love to be skillful and adept at whatever they’re doing. In other words – it’s more about how you are doing it, rather than what you are doing. 

Hansen argues that if you shape your thinking appropriately, you can find value in whatever you do.

5. Total Immersion: Theme Your Time

Most of you will have heard how to group tasks into similar jobs – this is called batching and it’s outlined in this article here.

Adding a theme to your time goes deeper than batching as it demands that you specialize – hence why it’s an effective means to work smarter.

Now, you can take this is as far as you like.  This might mean that for one day a week you decide to work on one specific topic in your area of work.  For me this might be focussing my energies on writing a sequence of emails for example.

However, to really juice the orange you can take this a lot further.  For example, in first quarter of 2020 I have decided to only write articles for my site around the topic of careers.  This means that I really get the chance to go in-depth, to ensure that posts flow from one to another seamlessly, to take care that there is a sense of cohesion between the things that are written.

When you focus for longer periods of time knowledge and understanding deepen, and outcomes become increasingly sophisticated.   You don’t waste time flitting from one thing to the next. It’s efficient and the time needed for recall and review is cut down to the bare minimum when you are totally immersed.  Decision making becomes streamlined and it’s a highly effective way to prioritize – you simly become obsessive about your ‘theme’; there is no room for anything else.

6. Automate and Delegate

The most successful entrepreneurs on the planet will tell you that in order to increase the pace of progress outsourcing and delegating are critical.  As the saying goes, no (wo)man is an island. To really work smarter you need to embrace this philosophy.

Find a freelancer, research the best tools for your trade, learn how to use the app. Whatever the solution, invest a bit of time upfront getting the right thing properly in place and then notice the difference that this makes to your life.  It’s like getting the wind back in your sails.

Be careful not to take this for granted.  Ensure that these strategies are monitored for efficiency and quality.

7. “Sharpen the Saw” (Dr Stephen R. Covey)

Covey’s best selling guide, The 7 Habit’s of Highly Effective People, contains a wealth of information on how to work smarter and not harder.  However, habit number 7, Sharpen the Saw, is one that can be universally applied to all people, irrespective of their role, background or personal circumstances.

Covey himself best summed this up:

“We must never become too busy sawing to take time to sharpen the saw.”

In other words in order to be effective, you have to look after yourself first and foremost.

Covey recommends that there are 4 key areas of our lives that we need to tend to:

• physical
• social/emotional
• mental
• spiritual.

He also suggests the types of activities that we can engage in:

Source: Franklin Covey

Taking a break and looking after ourselves can seem counter-intuitive to working smarter. It’s easy to see how one can be dismissive of this tactic almost immediately.  However, this strategy is profound in both its simplicity and truth.

Just like a car that runs out of gas, we all need to be refueled, regularly and with due care and attention.