How To Work Smarter, Not Harder…

The most successful and wealthiest people all practice these habits on a daily routine.

And adding these to your daily routine will contribute greatly to your success.

Planning your day actually starts the day before.

Set out what you want to accomplish before you even start your day.

The last thing you do before coming home from work or heading to bed is… 

To plan your entire next day.

When you plan your day the night before, your subconscious mind then goes to work on your plans and your goals while you’re asleep.

Sit down with this tool on your mobile device and put down everything that you need to do the coming day.

Preparing your daily list the night before will clear your mind and enable you to sleep better.

Which will increase your productivity throughout the day.

Now, when it comes to making your daily to-do list make sure that you’re working from the 80-20 rule.

If you have 10 items to do on your list, 2 of them will be more important than the other 8 put together.

You can do this by asking yourself… 

If I were to be called out of town for a month, what are the top 20% of my tasks that I must accomplish today?

By knowing how to prioritize tasks and working from a list you increase your productivity and output by 25% up to 50% each day.

After you’ve made your effective to-do list, make sure that you create time blocks dedicated to each task.

Keep in mind that new tasks and responsibilities will come up continually…

…phone calls will come in…

…emails will need to be dealt with…

…and meetings will need to happen.

The key to working smarter is also setting aside chunks of time for those unexpected tasks that will come up.

Scheduling your time this way reduces stress and makes you feel in charge of your life.

Another task you should block time for is breaks.

Every single study in productivity shows that you’ll be more productive in the 5 or 6 days that you work if you take one or two days off completely, than you ever will be if you work straight through for 7 days.

The same applies on a smaller scale in the hours of your day.

Taking a small break will clear your head and should give you some fresh thoughts to sharpen your focus.

However, don’t get too comfortable taking too many breaks or welcoming distractions.

This will help you manage your time just fine.

Most people spend 50% of their time doing non-work related activities while they’re at work.

Break the time-wasting habits like browsing social media, checking emails, taking long lunch breaks, and chatting with co-workers.

Time is your scarcest resource.

You must work smarter to preserve it in every way possible, and eliminating these time wasters will improve your time management skills and your quality of life.

Consider every time someone asks for your time as time taken away from your work and your life.

Spend your time like money.

Even when you’re not at work, your time is at least equal to an hourly rate.

If a person or activity is asking you to donate your time, ask yourself… 

How important is this task to me?

And how much of my time and money am I willing to donate to it?

If it’s not important enough you must discipline yourself not to do it.

Just say no!

You want to give at any time to your priorities and the top 20% of your tasks first…

Say no to requests to your time that don’t move you forward or are not of high value.

Ultimately, your top goal every day should be to get the highest return on your investment of mental, emotional, and physical energy.

That’s the key to working smarter.

If you want a software tool to help you work smarter and not harder from the comfort of your phone…

Then all you have to do is click here.

Until next time,

- EXCELERATE