Working Harder isn’t the Answer
We do it because it's the most visible form of productivity.
It is a way to prove to others that you are doing stuff and checking things off the list.
MORE IDEAS FROM THE ARTICLE
- Find an Accountability Buddy
- Create a morning ritual for the first hour of your morning
- Use the Pomodoro Technique to break your work into chunks
- Make a “Not-To-Do List” with the things that waste your time
- Use freelancing platform to outsource tasks
- Batching similar tasks into one chunk.
- Practice systems like David Allen’s Getting Things Done for task management.
It means scheduling your time according to your natural rhythms:
- Do your most important work at the beginning of the day if you are a morning person.
- Don't feel bad about sleeping in because you stayed up late at night to work if you are a night owl.
One reason we work too hard is that we are using that hard work to make up for a lack of courage.
Example: Instead of firing the team member who is dragging down the project, we work harder to make up for them. Firing them takes courage.
Acquire new skills that will help you get more things done in less time.
- Consume information and learn about other people from your field, about their mistakes and methods.
- Apply what you learn.
Hard work is necessary in order to be productive, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
At some point, you start to be negatively productive.
- Courage is in choosing to work less because we are confident in our own productivity time, even if that means having a 5-hour workday.
- It is having a difficult conversation with someone at work.
RELATED IDEAS
You can use the Pomodoro Technique get into the state of flow: work for 25 minutes on a single task and then take a short break of 5 minutes. If you get in the habit of performing Deep Work in the morning, even for just half an hour, your work will rapidly compound over time. Focus on performing Deep Work, meaning you get to work free of distraction for a long time.
Systems are the best way to progress since they reward effort and we control all the variables. However, we need to have a sense of direction in those efforts, to know what we are trying to accomplish.
Writing daily with no objective is just practice. If you want to achieve something, you need to commit to a certain output, like publishing a post on your blog weekly. At the end of the day, a system is a way to control how to achieve an output.
... is to maximize your productivity when you are working so that you can get more stuff done in shorter periods of time.
By working smarter, you'll find yourself with more time in the day to sleep, exercise, be creative, and recharge. And the key to getting through your to-do list faster is by working smarter -- without sacrificing the quality of your work.
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