How to work smarter not harder

Do you feel like you’re giving it your all, but you just can’t keep up with the workload at your job? Working harder isn’t the solution, you need to start working smarter so you can get far more done with far less effort.

CREATE A ROUTINE

You will work the most efficiently when you create habits for yourself. Create sleep habits, eating habits, working habits. All of them will help you become more efficient at your job. Go to bed at the same time every night and wake up every morning at the same time.

Work at the same time every day, take breaks at the same time every day. This parts a little repetitive because that’s the point. Get into the repetitiveness of the routine so you do them out of habit. Then you’ll have automized some of these tasks, so you’ll do them faster and more efficiently.

COMMUNICATE

Communication is the key to your success. Learning how to communicate well will result in less work on your half. If you’re working on a project for someone and you assume what they want instead of asking for clarity, they may not like it and ask you to revise it.

You just wasted valuable time, and have to redo work because you didn’t clarify with your boss or client beforehand. If you did take the time to talk to the people you needed to and asked the right questions, you wouldn’t need to redo anything. You would have known exactly what they wanted and would have done it right the first time.

Solid communication can result in a huge increase in your efficiency at work.

RELIEVE STRESS

Stress is a nasty killer of productivity. Stress causes physical, mental, and emotional issues that can hinder you from working at your peak efficiency. Your energy and mood will take a hit, you’ll become distracted easier, and you won’t want to get out of bed, let alone do any work.

You need to take care of your mental health and reduce stress so you can be at your best when it comes to working. Exercising, reading books, listening to music, yoga, and meditation are all great activities you can do to reduce stress.

Also, consider trying herbal teas that reduce stress. There are many kinds and a cup a day keeps the anxiety away!

PRIORITISE WORK

When you learn to prioritize the most important work first, you can maximize your efficiency. You need to learn how to gauge how long something will take when it will need to get done, and what should get done first.

You want to get all of the important work out of the way before you take on lesser work. It will make you a lot less stressed and allow you to get what needs to get done, done in ample time.

SET GOALS

It’s easy to get lose sight of progress and get discouraged when you’re too busy looking at the bigger picture. Giving yourself one deadline for a whole project is going to leave you very disorganized. You’ll work better if you plan out smaller milestones for each day or each even each hour.

Completing your goals will encourage you and motivate you to work harder. You’ll find that you’re happier at work and getting things done a lot faster when you shrink down your mindset.

MASTER TIME MANAGEMENT

If you feel like there’s not enough time in the day, there is a solution. You might not be able to add time to your day, but if you look at how you utilize your time, you might notice you don’t manage it well. If you learn how to master utilizing your time, you’ll be able to get more done in a day.

Time management is a key tool for working smarter. You can use a time management app to see how you can improve your day-to-day so you can get more done in less time.

DON’T MULTITASK

This may sound strange, but doing more at once actually hinders productivity. If you are trying to do multiple things at once, you’re stretching your mind thin, not allowing you to give enough effort to each task.

This can result in poorly done tasks, as well as longer work time for each. If you have a lot of work to do, it’s best to sit down and focus one hundred percent of your attention on one thing, complete it, and then go to the next. You’ll find that you can knock out more work faster that way.

CREATE A POSITIVE ATTITUDE

A good attitude can take you far in the workplace. When you have a good attitude you’re more inclined to pick up more work and get it done with above and beyond efforts.

Your coworkers will appreciate it, your boss will love it, and your work environment will be so much nicer. It will also help you set standards for your work. When you have a good attitude, you’re taking responsibility for your work and making decisions based on your intuition which will be easier than sulking about trying to do the bare minimum.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF

When you’re trying to work at one hundred percent, you can’t do that when you aren’t feeling one hundred percent. You need to make sure you’re eating healthy and getting enough sleep so you have enough energy in the day to complete the work you need to get done.

Rest and nutrition are very important, and so is making sure you don’t get sick. If you have a cold or something worse, you won’t be able to give it your all when you have a headache or a stomach ache.

Make sure you are staying healthy so your body is capable of supporting the work you need to put in at your job.

CONCLUSION

It might be a lot of effort at first, but in the long run, your work will become easier and you’ll be able to get it done faster.  It’s going to take time and dedication, but if you follow these tips and stick to it, you’ll be working smarter, not harder in no time.