How to Spend Less Time Working

How to Spend Less Time WorkingDo you long to finish daily tasks in record time?

Do you ever wish you could spend less time at the office?

In this post, I offer four quick tips to help you spend less time working.

These tips will help you finish your work both quickly and efficiently.

Work during your most productive hours.

Which do you think would make for a more pleasant experience?

Working on a project when you are awake, alert, and full of energy, or working on a project when you’re sleepy, groggy, and feeling out of sorts?

Pleasure aside, you’d probably choose the former situation.

You’d be able to finish your work quickly and easily, versus struggling through every single minute, and having the work session drag on for many unnecessary hours.

So, if you want to finish something in less time, work during your most productive hours.

When do you feel the most energetic, alert and ready to tackle your work?

You should also keep in mind the type of work you are doing.

For example, you might blaze through administrative work in the morning, or run through those errands in record time in the early afternoon.

Once you know how you work best, you can adjust your work approach as necessary.

Create time-saving work solutions.

Chances are, there are certain tasks or projects that occur in your schedule on a regular basis, be it daily, weekly, monthly or yearly. For the most part, the physical tasks themselves don’t change all that much.

Rather, what takes the most amount of time and energy is actually getting settled into doing your work. You might have to recall which bills need to be paid during the middle of the month, the format for writing a report, or the steps you need to take to print out a quarterly report from your company’s servers.

Make things easier for yourself by creating one or two time-saving solutions. You could create a document template, make a thorough checklist, or develop a helpful cheat sheet. You will have to invest anywhere from thirty minutes to one or two hours to create your solution, but once you’re finished, you won’t ever have to waste time or effort in future.

Stop whining…and start doing.

The work that we do doesn’t take nearly as long as the time we spend complaining about the work, wouldn’t you agree? One common form of procrastination is whining or complaining about one’s circumstances. We say how much we dislike the smallest five-minute task, and convince ourselves that it will take five months to complete.

Now, this isn’t to say you shouldn’t express any emotion about your work, but you shouldn’t let it take over your life.

When things get rough, take five minutes to vent those frustrations. After all, you’re only human! Then, take a couple of deep breaths to clear and focus your mind. Next, set a timer for one hour, pull out your work, and do what needs to be done.

Divide and conquer tasks.

When you divide work among people, something magical happens. Okay, it’s really not magical, but it is most certainly practical. Dividing tasks among people decreases the amount of work any one person has to complete at that particular point in time for a specific project. Work is completed quickly, and efficiently.

Instead of spending several days’ worth of time collating 300 reports by yourself, you could complete the task with a bunch of colleagues in just a matter of hours. Whether you need to address and stamp several hundreds of envelopes, collate a report, or research information, you might want to split up your work and ask for help.

How about you? How do you spend less time working? What are your favorite tips for getting things done quickly and efficiently? Join the conversation and leave a comment below!

5 Unexpected Things You Need to Organize a Work Notebook Mockup
About the Author

Rashelle

Rashelle Isip is a New York City-based productivity consultant who helps successful entrepreneurs and business owners manage their time and energy so they can reduce stress, work less, and make more money in their businesses. She has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, NBC News, The Washington Post, NPR, and The Atlantic. Get her free guide, 5 Unexpected Things You Need to Organize a Work Notebook, by clicking here.

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