Five tips for working smarter

Working smart isn’t always a direct substitute for working hard. But it’s just as crucial - working really hard on the wrong thing doesn’t make it any more important.

Here are five ways to become smarter about how you work.

1. Be proactive, not reactive

If you do not plan your time proactively, someone else will plan it for you. Spend the first part of every day planning what you need to get done.

Try to focus as much as possible on:

Highly important, non-urgent goals.
Consequential, irreversible decisions.

It’s okay to let small bad things happen to get big, important things done.

2. Guard your time fiercely

Time is your most precious resource.

A lot of success in life comes from knowing what you want to avoid.

Eliminate all except the most essential meetings. Most meetings are an enormous waste of time.

Minimise inputs like email. They interrupt your creative flow and immediately put you on someone else’s agenda.

3. Cultivate good habits and processes

Good habits compound over time, and automating these processes means they don’t drain your cognitive space.

Focus on the process, not the end result. If you have good processes, you’ll learn more and create better opportunities, even if you don’t always get the outcome you want.

4. Know yourself

Understand how you work best.

Align your peak energy tasks with your periods of peak energy during the day. Most people’s days consist of a peak, a trough and then a recovery.

Figure out what working environment works for you. If you are an introvert this is particularly important, since your working environment was likely designed by an extrovert.

5. Assess your progress over the medium term, not the short term.

Focus on incremental progress - on what you can do next to improve, not on how far you are from some ideal.

Most people overestimate what they can do in a day or a month, but underestimate what they can do in a year or a decade.

Further reading:

The Decision Matrix: How to Prioritise What Matters, Farnam Street

Joshua Waitzkin interview, Tim Ferriss

How to be Successful in Any Job, 80,000 Hours

Don’t Be a Donkey, Derek Sivers

The Power of Introverts, Susan Cain

Dan Pink interview, Tim Ferriss

The Problem with All Stars, Adam Grant

The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen, Tim Ferriss