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
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
- 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
Most goals are out of our control. We have limited control to reach them. In a system, your focus is on all the parts that you do control. And system is a fancy word for “repeatable process”.
For example: running a marathon is a goal, running 4 days a week for 30 minutes is a repeatable process.
Your interpretation of failure is preventing you from working.
Typical behaviours:
- You accept distractions because you already lost, but then think things will eventually fix themselves.
- You feel people are mad at you or don't understand your limited position.
- You slack in other areas because you think one loss justifies failing in other areas.
Solution: When you failed, you did not understand how much you actually learned. Take a day off to stop thinking.
When companies have more work than they can handle, they tend to ask, "Who will do this work?" But the better questions are:
- How should this get done?
- Is this the best way to do this?
- Is there a more efficient way to do this?
- Should I be doing this?
Identify what can be automated, delegated or be replaced in favor of something else. Even if it only saves you a few minutes, it will add up over time.