Last week, I found myself in three different client presentations saying the same words that I’ve said hundreds of times before. One presentation was on the “Power of Content Marketing,” another was on “Bull’s Eye Marketing” and the third was on “Developing A Prospecting System.” Despite the different topics covered, the words were appropriate for each one, “It’s about working smarter, not harder.”
Regardless of what you’re doing, it pays to do things in ways that get you the biggest bang for your buck. In my presentation on content marketing, ‘working smarter’ was about leveraging the work that you do and repurposing. In fact, I gave an example to the group of how one presentation could be repurposed in 10 different ways to get increased exposure and visibility.
In my presentation on Bull’s Eye Marketing, ‘working smarter’ was about narrowing your focus on what’s most important. It’s essentially spending your time on prospects and clients who are the best fit for what you do so you can effectively leverage your expertise and the value you provide.
And in my presentation on developing a prospecting system, it was about creating a system for an essential part of business development. The reality is that most people do a hodge podge of activities that yield haphazard results. They need an effective system or a set of processes so they can focus on the activities that will yield the best results.
When our time demands are at an all time high, we have to find ways to bring balance and focus in our lives. As one of my clients who was feeling overwhelmed shared, “I feel so frustrated that I’m constantly busy, but I’m not making the progress that I want to make.” For her, this was not a ‘bad week’ kind of experience, but one that has been going on for years. Can you relate? Have you ever felt like you’re on a freakin’ hamster wheel and it just keeps going faster and faster?
If so, it’s time to stop the madness and start ‘working smarter, not harder.’ Like my client, you may feel overwhelmed with just how to get started. In a coaching situation, I would dig down to your specific issues and challenges, but you can start the process yourself with these four steps.
1. Stop The Chaos:
First, take a breath. Stop long enough to stop ‘doing’ and start figuring out how you can break the cycle that is running you ragged. You’ll have to examine your habits and daily routines that are on automatic pilot and reflect on them to see if you need to make some shifts in what you do and how you do it.
To find the right emotional foundation, you will also have to start living in the present, which is something most people really struggle with. Worry about the future or frustration over the past will not serve you and will often keep you in a vicious cycle of overworking and underachieving. Breathe. Be in the moment. Take purposeful action toward what you want and what is really important to you, instead of mindlessly reacting to all of the demands around you.
2. Assess Your Time:
Next, I strongly suggest you complete a time log (we have one we call a Time Use Matrix*) As several clients told me last week, this activity is ‘eye opening.’ And yet, it is so simple to do. It will require focus on your part to complete however. You simply monitor how your time is being spent over the course of a week.
To get the full impact of this, you will need to record the activities you do during your workday by the smallest of increments – approximately 5 minutes. It is through this exercise that you will see, perhaps for the first time, how your days are being consumed and what you can start to do to fix it. What we find consistently with our clients is that too much time is being spent doing activities that are not adding enough value and that priorities on “Critical” activities need to shift. In addition, “Support” activities need to be done more efficiently or they need to be delegated, outsourced or eliminated. (*If you would like a copy of a Time Use Matrix, let me know and I can send it to you.)
3. Answer Some Important Questions:
Let’s go back to my three presentations. For in them, you can take away some important questions for your own work. Among these, you can answer the following:
- How can I leverage what I’m doing to have a greater impact? Essentially, you want to figure out if there are ways to get more mileage and impact from the activities you are doing. Hint: There are always ways to do this, but you’ll have to be open to change and new ways of working.
- Where should I focus my time? What are the most critical activities that will get me the results I’m looking for? Hint: Think of the 80/20 Rule and ask yourself where you can get 80% of the value you want.
- Are there systems or processes I can implement that will streamline my work and remove some of the common obstacles that get in my way? Hint: You don’t have to over think this. Keep things simple so they work for you and not against you.
4. Create A Vision:
The ultimate goal, at least for me, is to create a vision of the life that you want to live. And a big part of living the life you want to live is having a career that feeds you and doesn’t drain you. So you have to figure out what that is and you have to start living in the here and now, because the present in a powerful place – one that is not filled with looming deadlines or the anxiety of all the things that you have to do.
Many years ago, I started out with a vision of wanting to do the work that I love and still have time to love my life. It meant the ability to engage with amazing clients and get them big results. It also meant being able to make a difference, travel when I wanted, take time off when I wanted, have the flexibility that I wanted…all while making the money that I needed to do that. It was all about ‘working smarter, not harder.’
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The decisions we make every day impact the quality of our lives. We have this romantic notion that we have to embrace hard work to get ahead. It’s what our nation was built on. Believe me, I’m not knocking hard work. Sometimes, you have to roll your sleeves up and get it done. But people often confuse hard work with being busy. Or they believe that work has to be hard, because that’s why it’s called ‘work.’
It’s my experience that if I am more purposeful and strategic in how I go about my work, I can get more of the ‘right’ things done and leverage my activities for the best outcomes. I can also eliminate or minimize activities that often take lots of time, but don’t give me a good return on my investment. Simply put, if I work smarter, I will get better results. And I will have more joy and balance as well. It’s a no-brainer.
