Work Smarter, Not Harder:
Time Management Tips

This episode “Work Smarter, Not Harder” shares the fifth of my 10 methods to manage time effectively

Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management Tips

This mini-series is full of tips to manage your time better to fulfill your life’s purpose and in the transcription of this podcast you’ll see the link to my website where you can see more resources.

Achieve more with less effort, build a strong foundation

Elwood was a master home builder.  

Everyone who was anyone knew that if you wanted the highest quality house around, he was your builder.  

After many years of very happy customers, Elwood decided to build one last home and then retire.  

For this last contract, he was tired and could only think about what he would be doing after he retired. He did not give it his usual effort and even cut corners here and there.  

For once, he was not so proud of his effort.  

When it came time to give the new owner their keys, he opened the door to the home and “surprise,” inside were all his past happy customers who had chipped in to give him his last house as a thank you gift to him.  

He started crying. Only he knew why.  

If he had only known that he was building a foundation for his own retirement he would not have cut corners and would have given it his all, but it was too late to go back!

Put first things first – begin with the end in mind

In the previous sessions, we discovered our personal life purpose which we called our  “Why” in the major areas of our  lives.  

We also identified the clues within your personal makeup and how to identify the strengths that are uniquely yours and how to use that to increase your success.  

Then we learned to prioritize goals in your life, so we know where to focus.  

Last week we learned how to use time wisely by taking a personal inventory and analyzing it.  This week, we are at the halfway mark in this mini-series on time management and we are going to tie the first level of this course in a bow by learning to work smarter, not harder.  

Next week we will start focusing on automation tools to supercharge time management to bring your time mastery to much higher levels. At this point,  I had planned on ending the course before I began to record it.  

In order to master time and make an effective plan, you must know where you want to get to in the very end.  

Visualize it, break it down into its large medium and small steps.  

Then take that very first step and then the next beginning with the end in mind.  

We will dedicate a whole session to breaking this down effectively in week nine.

Organize your week

We will demonstrate how to organize your week practically step by step in session 10.  

Here, I am going to give you the steps we need to start taking to begin transforming your workflow so, you will be ready to do it well from now on.

List your 10 most frequent daily tasks

Last week, we took a personal inventory of where you spend your time.  

Look at that inventory and pick out the 10 most frequent daily tasks.  

In future lessons, we will learn to break these down into four categories based on Importance and Urgency, and we will also learn how to “work smarter, not harder” by deciding which tasks NOT to work on and instead Eliminate, Delegate, or Automate.

Taking actionable steps – block out 1st hour for the day’s most important goal

For next week, your homework is to look at the results we identified previously as most important for you to accomplish in each area of your life and the single most important thing you can possibly do to achieve that goal.  

It may be scary and or intimidating.  

If so, you probably hit the nail on the head and are ready to “work smarter, not harder.”  

If you don’t have strong emotional feelings when you think about accomplishing this task or perhaps NOT accomplishing this task, then it probably is not the most important, or you would have done it already.  

Maximize productivity, the 80/20 principle

Pareto’s 80/20 principle can be applied in many ways. 

Here I am teaching that accomplishing this one task will lead you 80% of the way to success in this most important building block in reaching your biggest goals.

Eat that frog

Brian Tracey wrote a book called “Eat That Frog,” which is based on the famous quote from Mark Twain: 

“If it’s your job to eat a frog, it’s best to do it first thing in the morning. and if it’s your job to eat two frogs, it’s best to eat the biggest one first.”

I want you to “Eat your Frog” right now and get these imposing tasks down on paper. 

Before you need to actually “eat” these tasks, I have some more smart working methods to share with you.

Thanks for listening to “Work smarter, not harder,” In the next podcast, we will learn how to “Sharpen your saw.”

For more guidance and tips on how to live your dream life, go to my website, therabbiwhogotrichonsunday.com, to access content-rich articles and more.

You can also access a link to that web page through the show notes if you are listening to this podcast on any popular podcast platform.