Have you ever asked yourself how successful men manage to work smarter, rather than harder? There are several explanations about how to improve your productiveness today! Right, but only if you have the desire for it.
All work and no fun makes everyone dull. In truth, the effects of overworking can be quite overwhelming: long working hours, increased stress, anxiety, estranged spouses, as well as reduced productivity and satisfaction from your work. Sometimes I overwork so much that all I can do in the evenings is browse Unfinished Man on my mobile. Those are my 15 minutes of tranquility.
Working smarter generates fantastic benefits. Your health is better, you have more money, you have a well-balanced personal and professional life, you feel more energetic, your self-confidence is up a notch and your productivity levels are outstanding. As a result, you are satisfied with your work and life.
Sounds like a fairy tale. But, is it a fairy tale? Why can so many people achieve that perfect balance? Based on many researches, here is what those people do. You will discover this pattern with many productive workers, so it must be true!
1. They Make Frequent Breaks
Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, tells an interesting story. It is about a lumberjack whose saw becomes blunt after some time, but he continues to use it to cut trees down. However, with every other tree, cutting them takes more and more time. If the lumberjack took frequent breaks to sharpen his saw regularly, he would be a lot more productive. Instead, he kept going with it, trying to cut a tree with all his might.
Metaphorically speaking, the “sharpening of the saw” can be an excellent life habit to stop and think. Learn to make breaks every 90 minutes. On average, the human brain can stay focused for exactly 90 minutes, and it needs 15 minutes to refresh itself. Frequent breaks allow for that refreshment and resetting of your function to keep attention.
2. Sometimes Their Breaks are Naps
More and more researchers have proven that naps can help your cognitive functioning. They can also improve your creative thinking and memory, which in turn improves the brain’s learning process and information retention.
How many times have you found yourself drifted away and sleeping for 20 minutes only to realize you feel more refreshed than ever? I know I have countless of times. Naps rule!
3. They Spend Time in Nature
Spending time in nature is maybe the best way to reset and relax your brain and spirit in general. Daniel Goleman, author of Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, describes an experiment in his book, which emphasizes the power of the nature in making us work smarter, and not harder.
This experiment proved that there is a significant difference in the attention span of the people walking on the street and the people walking in the park. Actually, what the experiment proved was that rarely anyone that takes a walk in an urban area (on the street) has an easy time resetting and refreshing his or her brain compared to those walking in the parks. It is a fact! Spending time in nature is less stressful; it is healthier and beneficial in general.
4. Immediately Check New Messages and Notifications
Contrary to popular belief, timely checking of your messages and notifications can be the difference between planning a productive day and planning just… a day. Now, when more and more people have remote jobs, catching up with your email inbox can be crucial to being a smarter worker.
5. They Know When to Quit
How many times have you wasted your time on a task, which in the end proved to be a big failure? The quicker you realize that the task will not bring you any benefits, the better. In addition, it is important not to feel bad about quitting.
Steve Jobs himself wasted incredible amounts of time on a task, which in the end proved to be a failure – the LISA computer. He realized that LISA would never have the same effect like personal computers. That is why he abandoned the project and instead focused his efforts on something that would bring him a lot more profit – the MAC computer.
6. They Delegate Tasks
Delegating tasks is one of the most crucial skills in not only making yourself smarter and more productive worker, but your team as well. Sometimes you need to recognize the moment when a task needs to be delegated to someone just to shift his focus from ruining something of a greater importance – it is how you manage the least productive teammates. Or, you can just fire them.
