How Can I Get More Done In A Day?
Today, we’re conditioned to believe that we should be busier, get more done and work harder. We’ve all heard motivational speakers giving well-meant advice that makes you believe that you aren’t doing enough, and that’s why you aren’t successful.
But the belief that “doing more = accomplishing more” isn’t as effective as it sounds. Doing less actually helps you get more done. This can take some time to realize, though, as many of us are conditioned to believe that we should do more.
By forcing yourself to do less, you unexpectedly end up with more.
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How To Do Less And Get More Done
By setting limitations on your work and forcing yourself to do less, you focus on your work and you drop the non-important tasks. This is the best shift you can ever make to improve your productivity levels. Use most of your time to focus on the most important things, instead of doing everything.
Only a Few Things Really Matter
In reality, only a few tasks really matter. And in business, it’s only a few tasks that significantly move the needle. All the other tasks are “good” to do but they’re distractions from your most important tasks. “Good” isn’t worth your valuable time and energy. It’s only the most important tasks are worthy of that.
You need to focus on what’s important and train yourself to avoid anything else. This will help you become highly productive and it’ll accelerate your path to growth and success.
The 80/20 Rule
The phenomena that only a few things matter comes from the 80/20 rule. The 80/20 rule states that 20% of the inputs account for 80% of the outcomes. This means that 20% of your tasks are responsible for 80% of your desired outcomes.
So, it’s only a few tasks that truly matter. If you want to be successful, you need to focus most of your time and energy on the most essential tasks. If you focus on the most important tasks, you’ll make the greatest impact with fewer resources spent.
Why Doing More Doesn’t Work
Productivity isn’t about doing more, working harder, or working more efficiently. Instead, productivity is about aggressively identifying what’s important, focusing your valuable time on those tasks and doing them as efficiently as possible.
But many people focus on quantity over quality. They focus more on the number of tasks they can do and the number of hours they work, instead of focusing on the actual value they can produce at any given time.
It doesn’t matter how much you can do if you don’t create real value with those tasks. Actually, it’s more productive to only work on 1-3 important tasks that create value for you, your business, or your customers, instead of doing 20 or so low-value tasks each day.
Creating Value
It doesn’t matter how many hours you work or how many things you do. What really matters is the value you create. This should be your productivity measurement.
Having too much to do takes away your valuable time, energy and focus from things that truly matter. This is because you won’t give the most important tasks your full attention when you have too much to do. The unimportant things will distract you from important tasks. This is the number one productivity and success killer. Spending time on too many things only leads to “incremental” progress or no progress at all. But if you spend your time on the most important activities, you’ll have “significant” progress.
So, stop trying to do everything and having less time for the most important tasks. Do only what’s important to you, your business and your customers. This will boost your productivity and it will help your business to grow fast.
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If you’ve been doing everything yourself, you’ll quickly find that this is a limiting factor to get more customers and grow of your business. Putting systems in place makes things quicker, and it makes it easier to outsource, giving you more time to focus on growth and new ideas. You must work smarter and not harder to improve business efficiency. To see how systems and automation can help you to get more done in your business, download my free checklist, A Guide To Business Systems And Automation.
