Work Less, Work Smart.

You are always working hard and are busy all the time. At the end of the day, you still have lots of things to do, and you have not even halfway finished your work. Have you ever wondered the reason for this? In this short piece, I will tell you how to work less and work smarter. In this way, you will genuinely finish most of your tasks and feel successful. Moreover, the more you feel successful, the happier you will become, and believe me, it is going to change your whole life.

1. Get up early

Getting up early is a good habit. You can schedule your day easily since you will have more time during the day. You may think that you can work at night and do the same tasks. You might be right, yet, sleeping at night is essential for your body to fully recover for the next day. You need to have your energy to run sprints, so why would you try to get a quiet place to get some sleep while everyone is awake? Working less and working smarter requires 7 hours of quiet sleep at night.

2. Concentrate on one task at a time.

You may think that being able to do several things at the same time is a powerful skill. No, it is not. It is completely wrong. If you claim that you can do lots of things at once, you are probably doing something wrong. When you look at the bigger picture, when multitasking, you are putting off the time you would normally finish the task since you are switching between different duties. At the end of the day, you will have at least spent the same amount of time, but even worse, maybe you will not be able to finish even one task. Thus, I recommend you take care of only one single task at a time and finish that task with a feeling of success.

3. Take a break

Take more breaks during your working hours. I mean, don’t run a marathon, but a sprint. Run with your full force, walk over the finish line, and have a rest. When you feel OK, then get up, run another sprint. That’s the way to finish lots of sprints throughout the day. You may think that you work less this way, but what you do is work smart.

However, sometimes you may feel deeply focused and may not want to get up. Don’t force yourself to stop working, go on at your natural pace until you feel like taking a break.

4. Make a plan

You may not like making plans since life is not something that can be well planned. However, write a draft to remember what to do during the day, even if it doesn’t have time allotted for each task. For instance, if you need to finish 3 different tasks in a day, write them down on a post it and stick them on your table somewhere. I know you may not like making plans in detail, but if you want to add some more details to your sticky note, do it. Moreover, you can add the time needed to finish those tasks, so you can overlook your day and have a guess at how long your tasks will take.

In addition to making a plan, after getting used to making daily plans, please try to make weekly plans by adding your daily plans together.

5. Hard work first

Don’t postpone difficult and boring tasks for a later date since they will always stay in your mind and hurt you. Finish it, get rid of it. There are lots of things which we might not like doing, but we have to. These are the tasks that should be put first on your daily plan. Why? Because before getting bored or tired, finishing those tasks would be very helpful for your psychological situation. Firstly, since you have finished a difficult task, you will feel successful and happy. This will give you more energy to move onto the next duties. Because they are easier tasks, you will feel the same achievement with less effort.

6. Don’t listen to music

I know, everybody on the Internet says that listening to classical music or any other kind of music they like helps them be more creative or fruitful. No, it doesn’t. I mean, if it is not working out in a gym, don’t listen to music. Listening to music is something that needs attention and thinking about. If you are not doing a physical task, you should not separate your attention and energy from each other and spend some on music and some on the task you need to finish.

If you want to listen to feel more creative, create music listening sessions for yourself, and write them down on your schedule. It might help you be more creative in lots of ways. Anyway, since you will work less than you expected, you will have time to listen to your favorite songs later.

7. Don’t have your phone next to you.

You may think that turning off notifications would be enough, but no, never. You may always check your phone screen to see if you hear sounds from your mobile phone. I do it as well. We are so addicted to our mobiles. However, as I said, put it somewhere far away while working. Believe me, you will forget your phone during work if you are focused enough. And you will work smart without your smartphone.

Conclusion

Get a good night’s sleep and get up early. When you wake up, have a nice breakfast. After that, finish your most demanding task for the day first and have a break before starting the next one. Don’t multitask. Make a daily plan and turn it into a weekly plan if you feel comfortable. Don’t listen to music while working, get rid of your phone. That is, work less but work smart.