How to Work Smart and Achieve better Results

How to work smart? Do you have a thousand things to do and the day is not enough for you? Do you work really hard, but are not you getting the results you expect? At the end of your work day you find yourself tired and frustrated because you feel that you are not advancing?

The vast majority of us are accustomed to working under routines and paradigms created in the industrial age. We believe that working hard and without rest will guarantee success, but the truth is that hard work alone is not enough.

If you want to change the way you work, then we share 15 keys to know how to work smart that will help you to achieve more results with less wear and tear.

How to Work Smart to Achieve Better Results

1. Work with focus

The first thing you must do to see tangible results of your daily effort is to set clear goals and a purpose to guide your actions. Intelligent work means working for goals and objectives, not for hours. The world is full of people who go fast nowhere.

When you work without a clear focus on what you want to achieve, you are likely to feel tired, frustrated and stressed by not feeling that you are moving forward in your life.

Working hard only makes sense if you are working on the right thing. But, what is correct? It is everything that contributes to achieving your goals and your life purpose.

Begin by establishing the great purpose you want to develop in your life, what is that legacy you want to leave in this world, how you want to make this world a better place. By having a purpose in which to focus, you can determine what you must do to achieve it.

2. Avoid Distractions

We are in a time when we have many distractions at hand that cost us more than we believe.

Did you know that receiving an email or a call while we are concentrating can cost us up to 15 minutes of productivity?

That is just one example of the many ways that distractions affect our performance on the job. In this infographics you can see the top 10 thieves of time, according to a study by Office Time.

Another great enemy of your productivity is procrastination. If you can do something in less than two minutes, then do it! If a task is too complex and requires a lot of effort, dedicate yourself to it in the early hours of the day, which is when you have more energy. Stop accumulating tasks that end up distracting you and stealing your concentration, preventing you from getting the results you expect.

3. Make task lists

It is a simple but powerful productivity technique that successful entrepreneurs use. By having a defined list of the tasks that you have to carry out to achieve the objectives that you have proposed, you can organize them and distinguish between the urgent and the important. In addition, thanks to your list of tasks you can have a clearer notion of which ones will take more time, which you can delegate, etc.

Another benefit of this list is that it will serve as a reference for monitoring your performance, allowing you to see at the end of the day, the week or the month, what tasks you have done and how far you have progressed towards your goals. It’s a great way to self-motivate you.

4. Establish priorities

One of the most important principles of intelligent work is to put the important to the urgent. After developing your list of tasks, organize them taking into account factors such as the benefit they generate, contribute to the achievement of your goals and importance.

The vast majority of people never have time for important things because day by day they spend it solving urgent things.

5. Make task lists

It is a simple but powerful productivity technique that successful entrepreneurs use. By having a defined list of the tasks that you have to carry out to achieve the objectives that you have proposed, you can organize them and distinguish between the urgent and the important. In addition, thanks to your list of tasks you can have a clearer notion of which ones will take more time, which you can delegate, etc.

Another benefit of this list is that it will serve as a reference for monitoring your performance, allowing you to see at the end of the day, the week or the month, what tasks you have done and how far you have progressed towards your goals. It’s a great way to self-motivate you.

6. Establish priorities

One of the most important principles of intelligent work is to put the important to the urgent. After developing your list of tasks, organize them taking into account factors such as the benefit they generate, contribute to the achievement of your goals and importance.

The vast majority of people never have time for important things because day by day they spend it solving urgent things.

7. Assign times to the different activities of the day

Undertake According to the Parkinson’s Law “work expands to fill the time available for it to end.” This means that if you only have 5 minutes to do a presentation, you will finish it in 5 minutes, it may not be 100% perfect, but you will. But if you have 2 months to do the same presentation, it will take you 2 months to complete it.

Assign each task a time limit to perform according to the importance of it, so you avoid wearing down tasks with little relevance and you will have more time and energy to advance in achieving your goals.

8. Do the most important or energy-demanding tasks first

If in the first hours of your day you perform the most important tasks or the most exhausting, you will have a feeling of satisfaction that will accompany you for the rest of the day.

At the end of the day you may not have completed all the tasks you had scheduled, but working this way will ensure that you have fulfilled the most important thing you had to do.

9. Apply Pareto Law

The Pareto law (also known as the 80/20 rule) says that “80% of the consequences derive from 20% of the causes.”

From the point of view of productivity, you must identify what 20% of the activities that produce 80% of the results. Focus on that 20% and you will get significant improvements in your performance.

10. Learn to say NO

Saying “YES” to everything (to not seem selfish or wanting to please), is something really exhausting and brings more problems than benefits, especially when you are undertaking and need to focus on consolidating your business.

Do not say “maybe” when you do not want to do it. Do not say “suddenly” when you know the answer is NO.

11. If you can delegate, do it!

Once you organize your work, you will see that there are many activities that do not necessarily have to be done by you. Take charge of the strategic part and delegate the operational part, so your business model will be ready to scale in a sustainable way.

To delegate successfully, consider these 3 keys:

• Work with the best: Make sure you have talented, trustworthy people who are truly committed to the mission of your business.
• Empower your team: “It does not make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.” – Steve Jobs. If you choose the people on your team well, you should give them all the information and tools to do their job without any drawbacks or limitations; otherwise you will continue to be a barrier to growing your own business.
• Standardize: Create formats, standards and protocols that serve as reference to your team when it comes to doing their job, but avoid falling into the mistake of “bureau crating” processes in your business.

If you do not have workers under your care, you can outsource the operational work with freelance workers. On the Internet you find designers, writers, virtual assistants and a plethora of freelancers willing to handle heavy work at reasonable prices.

12. Take advantage of technology

Today we have hundreds of applications and tools created to help us organize and optimize our work, so the truth would be a waste not to take advantage of them.

Here are 10 Tools to Be More Productive. If you know of another productivity tool that has been useful to you, do not hesitate to share it.

13. Put your money to work

Face fears Invest to create assets that generate income without having to physically work on them. This type of income is known as “Passive Income”.

Some examples of Passive Income you can create:

• Receive dividends for owning shares in companies
• Have a house or commercial premises for rent
• Collect royalties or royalties for some invention or artistic creation
• Sale of info-products using digital tools
• Own a business
• Record a course and market it on online platforms

As you can see, creating a passive income requires a great investment of time, effort and / or money, but once it is ready, it will even allow you to “make money while you sleep.”

14. Plan and View

It is false that things go better when they are not planned. While it is true that there are several factors that do not depend on us, it is also true that being organized in the way you work will allow you to reduce uncertainty and optimize your performance.

A good tip for you to plan is easier, is to use tools of visual thinking (Visual Thinking). In addition, to positively visualize the results of the work that you are going to do, will fill you with motivation to realize it.

15. Rest properly

After some time doing an activity, you are likely to feel distracted more easily and begin to feel anxious not to advance as you wanted.

There are several productivity techniques that combine intense work with rest breaks. One of the best known is the Pomodoro Technique, which consists in dividing the work in intervals of 25 minutes (called “pomodoros”) separated by pauses of 5 minutes. Every 4 pomodoros should take a longer pause, about 20 or 30 minutes.

Ideally, you should find your own work pace, but always including breaks to ensure that you are truly productive. Remember that it is not how many hours you work, but what results you are getting.

It is also important that you get enough sleep. If your body and your mind are tired, you will hardly be able to be productive in your work.

16. Turn your work into challenges

Successful businessman an excellent tip to take your productivity to new levels and have fun in the process is to turn your activities into challenges to overcome.

You can use elements such as the amount of time spent doing the task, quantity produced in a certain time interval, performing the task with the non-dominant hand (at first it will contribute little to your productivity, but it will help you boost your creativity, And to create neural networks), etc. The idea is to be creative and to exploit all your productive capacity.

You can also establish a rewards system for when you meet your challenges, that will make it even more fun and help you motivate.

17. Be disciplined

Changing your way of working means redefining your habits and changing your mindset. It is not easy. Therefore you have to be disciplined in the application of each of the points mentioned here. Once you get used to working smart, you’ll get significant improvements in your productivity. Finally, I would like to recommend the book “The 4 Hour Labor Week”, written by Timothy Ferris. In it you will find productivity tools and techniques that will help you to break paradigms about the way we work.