I’m sure you’ve all heard the adage “work smarter not harder.” I definitely agree. My secret to success thus far has been to work smarter AND harder. If you can do 8 hours of work in 6 hours, then why not do 10 hours in 8? I feel certain we all agree on the merit of working smarter. I think the real question is, “HOW”?
I don’t have all of the answers, but I have some of them; I’ll gladly share those and would love to hear from you tips that work in your business.
One working smarter tip is eliminating the fallacy of multitasking. Studies show, there is no such thing. What you are doing instead is rapidly shifting your focus from one thing to another. You are unable to truly focus on any of the tasks at hand and each will take longer, even if they are done concurrently so it feels (falsely) as having higher productivity. These will likely have lower quality as well because of attempted “multi-tasking.”
Also, a productivity tip that I am currently working on improving is delegating. Not only can I not physically do it all, but if I’m honest, I’m not even the best at everything. Some of the tasks that I have, I’ve learned that I dislike – such as paperwork and bookkeeping. I have an amazing team that specializes in all of our in-house services surrounding our marketing and technology business, and then I find new homes for those other things. I have an excellent bookkeeper to handle my day-to-day finances and have added a virtual assistant to handle the paperwork that I dread. (**I have a helpful tip at the end if you’d like to win 10 FREE hours of a virtual assistant’s time to see if it’s for you.)
Another way that we work smarter in business is by implementing automation. This works in marketing automation (drip newsletter campaigns, integrations, etc.) Our software team also builds custom automation for businesses (including ours) all the time. Instead of spending time manually creating files and uploading things, build a program instead that does it on your behalf. We utilize web scraping to curate information instead of searching for it. We utilize automation to log in and import databases that do not have API capabilities. Without getting too nerdy on it, if you wonder “surely there’s got to be a better way”, likely there is!
And while mildly off-topic, one way I like to work through my projects when I feel overwhelmed is by employing Dave Ramsey’s debt snowball theory. If you owe money, pay off entirely the line of credit with the smallest balance and then utilize that payment the next month to apply to the now smallest balance until all debt is paid off. I employ that strategy to my task organization to first knock out the smallest task and utilize the momentum and energy to begin work on the next smallest task. When you’re “in the zone” it’s easy to make massive progress, and this “debt snowball” approach is a surefire way to get in the zone.
**Ok, back to the 10 FREE hours of a virtual assistant. My business coach extraordinaire, Charlise Latour with Accelerate Your Success, is having a contest to grow her business newsletter subscribers. If you sign up to receive her AWESOME newsletter full of business insight and tips by 1/31/23, you’ll be automatically registered for your chance to win 10 free hours of support! Please help her reach her subscriber goal and let her insights support your business!
