Whenever you feel like you’re not getting enough done, you probably always turn to the same solution: working harder. Yet, you’ve probably heard the saying that you should “work smarter, not harder” which sounds great, but how do you actually work smarter?
Why Working Harder isn’t the Answer
The reason most people work harder is that it’s the most visible form of productivity.
It’s extremely hard to connect your input, the time you spend working, with the output, the finished project.
Were the three hours I spent writing that report this morning productive? Or was that really a distraction and I should have been doing something else?
Is reading this book helping me learn a new skill or is it just a waste of time?
In most cases, it’s hard to know, especially if you work as a part of a large team. This means it’s very difficult for your manager to know who is generating the results and who isn’t.
In reality, working more hours is often just a way to prove to others, rather than yourself, that you’re “getting things done.” You’re worried about people thinking you’re lazy and, if you’re like me, you’re insecure about how important the work you are doing really is.
The Dose-Response Theory of Working Harder
When prescribing some medicine, doctors know that there is a dose-response curve.
Too little of the medicine and you aren’t getting the full benefit, but too much and you could be damaging the patient.
If you don’t have enough Iron in your blood, taking the right amount of an iron supplement can be helpful, but taking too much can be poisonous.
The same is true of many other things. Working out for a few hours per week is probably very beneficial. Working out for sixty hours per week can be extremely damaging to your long-term health. It is simply too high of a dose.
The same relationship is true with working harder. You need some hard work to be productive, just like you need some exercise to be healthy, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
The relationship between how much work you are putting in and your actual productivity over the course of a typical work week looks like this:
Because it takes a while to get into your peak productive state, the first few hours of the work week typically don’t go anywhere. You sit down at your computer, fidget a little, check email (but don’t respond). Then, you start getting into the flow, loading up all the mental RAM and really getting things done.
Once you get past a certain number of hours per week (in my experience, peak productivity is around 10–30 hours per week or roughly 2–6 hours per day depending on the person and circumstance), your productivity starts to drop off.
This is corroborated by research from Anders Ericcson, whose research was popularized as the 10,000-hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers.
If you study high performers across industries (music, painting, writing, entrepreneurship, math, engineering) and across time periods (1500 to present), no one consistently (for months at a time) sustained in excess of twenty hours per week of high-level output, most did far less.
- Charles Darwin engaged in “focused work with occasional trips to the snuff jar” for three hours each morning.
- Tchaikovsky did two hours of composition from 10am to noon with an occasional afternoon work session when he was feeling particularly energized.
Despite being two of the greatest contributors in the history of their respective fields, working an enormous number of hours obviously wasn’t their secret.
After two to four hours a day or 10 to 20 hours per week, they crossed a threshold where they couldn’t do any more high-level creative work but still had the energy to do managerial and administrative tasks.
Darwin, for example, spent his afternoons reading, writing letters, and tying up loose ends.
At some point though, you start to be negatively productive. I learned this writing my first book when I had the attitude that I would “push through.” I found that past a certain point, usually two hours of writing for the day, not only were the words I put down not good, they were actively hurting the writing. Putting in an extra hour was not just an extra hour of work that day, it created another hour of work the next day when I had to go in and remove all the sections that I had ruined trying to “work harder”
So, what are some ways that top performers work smarter, not harder?
How to Work Smarter, Not Harder
1. Prioritize Tasks by Energy Level
One way to work smarter, not harder is to plan your days and weeks around your natural rhythms. If you’re a morning person, don’t leave the most important work for the afternoon and if you’re a night owl, don’t feel guilty about sleeping later and staying up at night to get your work done.
I started to break my to-do lists into three sections and sort it by energy levels:
- High Energy — This is my “maker” work that requires my highest level creative energy (the morning for me)
- Medium Energy — This is my “manager” work when I try to schedule meetings, answer email and do other reactive work.
- Low Energy — This is my “administrative” work like paying bills, reviewing reports, and booking travel.
I typically do about 10–15 hours of high-level work each week, another 10–15 of medium energy work, and another 10–15 of low energy, administrative work.
At that point, I’m past the negative productivity range.
Preliminary research from Stanford suggests that the point where you pass into negative productivity is somewhere between 30–50 hours depending on your personal genetic makeup and external conditions.
2. Learn New Skills
Another way to work smarter is to develop new skills that let you accomplish more in less time.
Consuming information lets you learn from the mistakes of others more quickly and inexpensively than doing it yourself. It took over a hundred years for people to learn how to market products effectively but you can spend a month reading the five most important books in the field and learn 80% of the entire field.
I’ve met plenty of people who have “five years of marketing experience” that can’t do their job as well as someone who has worked in marketing for six months but read the fundamental books of the field.
However, if you want to work smarter not harder, it’s not enough just to read the books. Reading books gives you explicit knowledge, the knowledge that can be readily articulated and verbalized. It does not give you tacit knowledge, the kind of knowledge that can’t be written down or verbalized.
While you can read books about playing the guitar to get explicit knowledge, you’ll never learn how to be a productive guitar player until you develop tacit knowledge through actually practicing the guitar.
By combining the two — reading books and studying your field and actually practicing it, you can gain the type of tacit knowledge that will make you more effective so that you can get more done in less time.
Spending just ten minutes a day reading a book and then applying what you learn at work is a really effective way to work smarter.
3. Use Popular Productivity Hacks
Another way to be more effective is to use “productivity hacks,” different tricks and hacks that can help make you more effective.
Here are some of the productivity hacks I’ve found most useful:
- Find an Accountability Buddy — Use online tools like Focusmate or in-person work colleagues and use them to help keep you accountable so you don’t procrastinate.
- Create a morning ritual to standardize the first thirty minutes to an hour of your day. Meditate as a part of it.
- Use the Pomodoro Technique to break your work into chunks. The Pomodoro technique has been proven to reduce the impact of internal and external interruptions to focus.
- At the end of the day or week, make a list of your least valuable tasks and ask: “Is it profitable?” If not, stop doing it. If yes, can you delegate it?
- Make a “Not To Do List” which lists all the things you frequently waste time on. (For example, answering unknown numbers, responding to emails that should be archived, saying yes to meetings without a clearly defined purpose and agenda).
- Use platforms like Upwork and Fancy Hands to outsource tasks which can be done for less than your personal hourly rate.
- Read and implement David Allen’s Getting Things Done system for task management.
- Batching similar tasks into one chunk. For example, cook everything for the week on Sunday afternoon and save it for reheating or pay all your bills on the second and fourth Fridays of the month.
- Learn keyboard shortcuts for applications you commonly use. (The Gmail Shortcuts take ~5 minutes to learn and will double the speed at which you go through email.)
4. Use Software and Automation
A fourth way to work smarter, not harder is to leverage software and automation. There are many tools available to knowledge workers today that can help them get more done by automating boring or repetitive tasks.
Here are some of my favourite software tools:
- Use Readwise.io to sync your Kindle highlights with Evernote so you can easily search through all your book notes.
- Save articles to Instapaper or Pocket and read them on your phone instead of leaving twenty tabs open and slowing down your computer.
- Use Calendly to schedule meetings so you don’t have to send emails back and forth trying to figure out a time that works for both of you.
- Use Lastpass to store all your saved passwords so you don’t forget them (or resort to using insecure passwords like your dog’s birthday)
- Use The Email Game to gamify your email so you get through it faster.
- Use Filters in your email to send non-essential emails like newsletters or shopping emails to a separate folder.
- Use jumpcut to save a list of things you have copied.
- Speed up your cursor speed in your settings so you can move it around your computer faster.
- Use a text expander to save commonly used phrases (like your address or commonly typed URLs). (One of the most frequent ones I use is “,chat” which turns into “Let me know when a convenient time for you to chat is. If you prefer, my calendar availability is athttps://calendly.com/yourname.”)
- Use Freedom.to to block yourself from distracting websites during your maker time.
- Use Rescue Time to measure how much time you are spending on different sites.
- Use Evernote
- Use a task manager like OmniFocus, Todoist or Things.
All these things help. I use all of them and am more productive as a result. However, they can also be a dangerous distraction by making you feel like you’re being more productive when you aren’t.
The real truth about how to work smart, not harder is that working smarter requires one special ingredient: courage.
5. Courage: The Real Way to Work Smarter, not Harder
“Use courage and wisdom, not labor, to make money.” — Nassim Taleb
Imagine you want to become a professional hockey player. If you want to be good at hockey, you need to be able to do three things.
- You need to know how to skate.
- You need to know where to skate to (where is the puck going?)
- You have to be willing to get hit.
All the techniques we’ve looked at so far have been about learning to skate better. Learning to skate better is important if you’re going to be a good hockey player, but it’s only helpful if you also know where to skate and if you’re willing to get hit.
The popular perception is that people who are successful (whatever your definition of success) got there by the methods discussed above. I have no doubt many successful people use all those techniques and many others, though many do not.
I know and have studied many people who work hard and work smart but seem to get much less done than they are capable of. What gives?
One part of it is luck. Sometimes you just happen to be standing right where the puck is going. While there are things you can do to increase your chance of getting lucky, there is another component that you have more control over.
As I’ve continued to study successful people and meet some people that I would consider successful, the biggest common factor in their success iscourage.
The courage to skate to where the puck is going when everyone else is skating to where the puck is. And, the courage to get hit.
I believe one of the main reasons we work too hard is that we are using that hard work to make up for a lack of courage.
When I was in 8th grade, I had a crush on Lindsay. I spent months going around and talking to all her friends and seeing what they think she’ll say, then composing a letter, then throwing the letter away, then regretting throwing the letter away, etc.
What I should have done was just walk up to her and asked her on a date. It would have taken me two minutes and she might have said yes and she might have said no and either way it would have been done in two minutes (and, the fact that I had the courage to just ask her probably would have made it more likely she said yes!).
We all do this in our work to:
Instead of firing the team member who is dragging down the project, we work harder to make up for them. Firing them takes courage. It is emotional work.
Instead of asking a coworker upfront why we don’t work well together and having an honest conversation about it, we gossip behind their backs.
Instead of sharing a new idea, we keep it to ourselves because we’re afraid what people will think.
There is no one way to apply more courage to your work.
Maybe, for you, courage is choosing to work less because we are confident in our own productivity time. Even if that means having a 5-hour work day or 20 hour work week.
Maybe it’s having a difficult conversation with someone at work.
But, for all of us, being courageous is the real hard work we need to do, rather than just “clocking in more time.”
Last Updated on July 30, 2019 by Taylor Pearson
Lidiya K says
Hey Taylor,
Saying that’s another fantastic piece of writing would be an understatement!
I was taking notes, that’s how useful it is. I’m all about finding what works best and doing more of it, prioritizing, implementing systems for maximum results. And yet with so much content out there I rarely see anything that makes me take action.
As you know, a super powerful post can be recognized when a reader makes a change in his life right after it. That’s what I’ll do.
So here’s what I came up with after reading the essay:
1. Enjoyed hearing about Darwin and Tchaikovsky’s examples. I too am a fan of high performers and their habits.
But in this case, I felt relieved as it’s connected to something I’ve been struggling with lately.
I’m a writer before anything else.My main source of income is freelancing for clients. I work on many other digital projects too, but the more I do this, the more my revenue grows (until I’ll reach a point where I can’t put in any more hours and can’t raise my rate any higher, and I’ll need to productize the service and actually create a system that will be working without me in the picture so much, but that’s another topic).
Because of working on improving my productivity, time management and organization skills so much, I’m generally working 4 hours a day (right after I wake up). I get a lot done and then work on less important stuff and do all the other things I want to do (gym, social life, chores, reading).
Lately, I’ve been doing my main work for 2-3 hours daily and am done with the creative output for the day. I’ve been feeling a bit guilty about this too. I mean, I still do the work like before, focusing on quality, but it happens faster.
Now, I look at things from another point of view and it doesn’t need to be a bad thing. 2 simple examples like the ones you gave here were enough.
Also, if I push myself and try to work more and more hours doing this kind of work, it will definitely be negative productivity as the quality will be lower, and I’ll either have to re-do it the next day, or my reputation in general will worsen and I’ll start losing clients.
2. Cheers for sharing the idea to divide a to-do list into these 3 categories. Here’s how it helped me:
I’d never actually divided my work related tasks into Maker, Manager and Administrative. Should have done it ages ago, really.
And because the written word is more powerful and in a table I immediately saw a theme, I realized that editing and actually getting an article or a book ready for a client shouldn’t fall into the Maker column in my case as it’s not what requires highest level creative energy.
So I’ll be optimizing things from tomorrow on by investing the first 2-3 hours of my most productive time into writing ONLY, and will be leaving the editing part and other things related to the content for a second work shift later in the day, for the evening when I feel like it and am on the laptop, or for another day. It won’t require my creative energy, which seems to be the most important thing.
3. I’m a bit new to financial and location independence, and still haven’t found the right way to manage money. And although I’m tracking everything and doing weekly reviews of my goals (financial and work-related ones), there’s a lot to improve.
Your advice to batch similar tasks – which was an example of a productivity hack of yours and something you’ve written about before – and, in particular, to save the 2nd and 4th Fridays of the month for paying bills, appealed to me quite a lot and I’ll be trying some version of this.
So, I truly hope you’ll keep doing what you do, and keep sharing the results and your thoughts on it, because it does make a difference out there. 🙂
Thanks.
Best,
Lidiya
Taylor Pearson says
Hey Lidiya,
Awesome reply, thanks so much!
Today says
This post resonated with me. My big lesson here was to prioritize courage. I’ve noticed its effectiveness before but this article put it down into clear words. Will be sure to invoke my courage whenever possible. (If you had a post on how to draw courage, that would be great!)
Thanks!
Brian
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks! As to your question, would take a look at The War of Art – http://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626
Marcus Neo says
Enjoyed this article!
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks Marcus!
Chiara Cokieng says
Courage is also the conclusion I came to while reading The 80/20 Principle.
In the book, Koch asks the reader to list her most significant achievements, and to identify the patterns that led to that success. Most of mine were a result of having the courage to look stupid, to not overestimate the competition (and underestimate myself), to reach out to people seemingly out of reach, etc.
Those are the big life actions.
I’ve also come to frame small, everyday failures (procrastination, failing to sell, failing to write) as failures of courage — mostly the fear that what I am about to do will not live up to what I think I am capable of. Telling myself “be courageous” rather than “work harder” is more effective.
Taylor Pearson says
Yep, had pretty much the same experience with Koch. 🙂
Nicholas Godwin says
Your article’s usually leave me speechless. I mostly don’t leave comments because i feel thd need to urgently take action on what I just learned. On this occasion, I thought it’d be good to say thank you for your great work, I’ve learnt so much from you… Thanks for the wisdom.
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks for the kind words! Rock on 🙂
Hayden Miyamoto says
Taylor, great post. Personally, I would define “working smarter” a little differently. What helps me work smarter is constantly zooming out and taking a holistic view, understanding my desired future outcome, and going back to first principles to figure out the quickest path to success (which then often involves doing courageous things).
My best learning style is through writing – I’m intuitive and it allows me to form ideas that are floating around beneath the surface. So journaling is my key to achieving the above.
You and Tim from waitbutwhy are literally the only bloggers I read regularly, keep up the great work!
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks Hayden!
Yea, i guess would put “Strategic thinking” under working smarter. I think it gets mixed up for me because a lot of my best “strategic business moves” are the kind that never get published in business books. Hosting events to bring people together and moving to new cities are two of my best strategies in the past five years but seem to be more functions of courage (at least for me!)
Jeremy Martin says
Taylor your are becoming a serious thought leader. The essay invoked a series of instant changes in me, firstly I am writing this comment and I almost never comment, secondly I shared this on my personal Facebook feed which I seldom share blog posts to. I know your backstory involved a good few courage moments so you drink your own cool aid. Seth Godin would say something like ‘thanks for showing up for all of us and doing the real work’.
Taylor Pearson says
Hey Jeremy,
Thanks for reading, sharing and especially for the kind words! Seth is the man 🙂
Colin Randall says
Really powerful stuff Jeremy.
This line absolutely slapped me in the face because it’s just so true for me: ‘by choosing to focus on many things, we guarantee that none will work.’
Not so ironically, I was finishing off Peter Drucker’s ‘Effective Executive’ today with some very similar ideas around those who succeed choose to commit one task at a time. Something I now know I need to force myself to do if I want to see a change.
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks Colin. Drucker is one of my all time favorites and is not read nearly enough.
Matthew Newton says
Thanks for this post. Since getting back from my honeymoon I have implemented it in a VERY loose fashion but it’s been helpful.
I have a column of Maker stuff and a column of Admin stuff in Trello. If I’m out of things to do in the morning, I go to the Maker column… and etc.
Taylor Pearson says
Awesome to hear!
Matthew Newton says
Happy to report that I have continued with this and it has been successful. A really great model.
Chris Ward says
Great article, Taylor.
I’ve wanted something like clippings.io for ages but didn’t know it existed. Thanks!
Taylor Pearson says
Likewise, huge fan!
Annelise Mitchell says
This is my third time reading this article. There are nuggets of gold laced throughout this entire article.
Taylor Pearson says
Thanks Annelise!
Alex Maldo says
Use the time when no one can bother you to get some work done. The another thing that matters is your typing speed. If you have more than average typing speed you can really do well in your work.
Source: https://hypno-type.com/
Mike Wrabel says
This was great! Here are my takeaways and how I’m going to implement them.
I categorized my To Do list into A (Maker), B (Manager), C (Admin). Surprisingly, I had only one A task on it. I’m going to have the Courage to focus solely on that for at least 2 hours today and see where that gets me. When I feel my work starting to slip or I hit 3 hours, I’ll take a break before prioritizing my B list and dig in. Repeat for C.
Thanks for this Taylor!
Taylor Pearson says
Hey Mike,
That’s pretty much my system too 🙂
Glad it helped!
Let me know how it goes!
Mu Ven says
Eye-Opener !!! Clearly mentioned all my flaws !!! F…Awesome !!!