Work Smarter, Not Harder

For almost as long as I can remember I have heard the terminology “work smarter, not harder” and as I matured in my various roles I could see how I might employ the strategy. Early in my career I spent many hours working, but much of the time I was spinning my wheels and not getting much done. It occurred to me that there must be a better way, and so I gained advice from those seeming to accomplish much more with their efforts.

One of the first aspects of “working smarter, not harder” was to plan my work. Knowing where you are going saves a lot of time in the long run. The second half of planning is that once work is planned to then work the plan. Someone else improved upon this advice by telling me to work when you’re working and play when you are playing. Both are important, but should be separate activities and seldom mixed.

Understanding an application of the Pareto principle is also important. That is, that 80% of your results come from 20% of your efforts, or 80% of your problems come from 20% of your clients. When this is well understood effort can be made to focus on productive areas and spend less, but necessary, time on less productive ventures.

Learn to say “No.” You could live to be a hundred and still not have time to do everything you want—that’s the curse and blessing of being intelligent and having high expectations of yourself. The good news is you can choose what to focus on. You have far more freedom than you may realize. Review everything in your life and ask, “What’s the worst that can happen if I stopped doing this?” Saying “No” sometimes is the only way you can say “Yes” to what you really value.

Another aspect of “working smarter, not harder” is to avoid perfectionism. Perfectionism cripples us into redoing work repeatedly for that perfect result. The secret is there is generally no perfect result and the time spent seeking a perfect result could be better spent on other tasks. Perfectionists tend to employ “tunnel vision” and can’t do more than one task at a time. In our complex business and personal environment we must learn to multitask and live with several unfinished tasks in the process of moving towards completion.

Avoiding perfectionism will allow better use of another aspect of “working smarter, not harder” to take place. It will be easier to delegate some tasks to others when we know that some of their work will also not be perfect. Our attitude of “I can do it better” will be tempered to one of “I will have time for other important tasks.”

Finally, developing flexibility will help us to “work smarter, not harder.” Most of our plans, whether performed by us or others, will seldom go exactly as they were laid out. When problems arise adjustments will determine success. The more we anticipate the needs for adjustment, and possible diversions from, the more time we’ll have to accomplish the tasks.