Source: Dumb Little Man
Most of the things we do require hard work. Whether it’s our job, relationships, and personal goals, we need to exert effort and work extra hard to get the best results possible.
Unfortunately, working hard comes with negative effects.
If you have been working hard for an extended period of time, there will come a point where you’ll realize that there’s only so much you can do by working hard.
Don’t get me wrong – working hard is important. I’m a firm advocate of hard work as I can be quite the workaholic. I can go on working non-stop to get something done. Hard work is definitely the brick of success.
However, when you have 24 hours a day, just like everyone else, you have to start working smart to get the maximum value for your time and effort. Working hard gives you results, and working hard AND smart at the same time gives you the top results.
In this article, I will share 18 of my best personal tips on working smart. Apply them to your life and you will experience better self-management, higher productivity, and more results.
Here they are:
Get clear on the objective
Everything has an objective. It’s just a matter of whether you know it or not.
What is the end objective you are looking for?
The people who don’t know the objective of what they are doing are the ones who waste the most time. If you know your objective, you can be laser-focused and cut right to the chase.
The clearer you are, the better.
Create a vision
Now that you know your objective, what is your vision?
See the objective as your direction and your vision as your destination. Knowing your objective lets you know your destination while knowing your vision helps you charge forward.
Take the 80/20 route
There are always many different ways to achieve the same outcome. 80/20 route refers to the route that takes the least effort but gives you the maximum results.
What’s the most effective route that will get you from where you are to where you want to be?
Take that path.
Go for high impact items
There are endless number of things you can do to achieve a goal. Go for the most important tasks – the ones that cause the highest impact.
For example, in school, I would not attend lectures if I felt they would not make a difference to my learning. As I develop my blog, I concentrate on the key tasks that make the most difference such as writing high quality content for my readers and spreading the word about my articles.
Create structures to maintain your flow
If you know how motivation works, you will know it comes in bursts and waves. It’s not possible to maintain a 100% full motivated state every single second. Hence, you need to create/leverage on your environment to maintain your flow.
Examples are your physical environment, people you hang out with, your routine, and communities you are a part of.
Stop being a perfectionist
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