If you are one of those who constantly strive to increase their productivity, then you have probably heard and believed the saying that the more you work, the better. However, the reality is somewhat different and more complex. In factories, for example, the quest is always to increase production while reducing costs, or at least not to raise them, which is known as the principle of “less is more.” that is, making less effort to achieve greater achievement.
Although it may not seem like a logical idea to you, it is actually practical and successful in most cases. So what do you think of adopting this principle to raise your productivity and accomplish a lot of your work in less time? How is that? Well, here are 10 practical ways to put you on the right path towards working smart to save effort and time!
1- The shorter your emails, the more effective they are.
When you send a 3-paragraph email, it will likely be the last email read by the recipient of the message, if it is read at all. No one wants to read long letters, even if they come from an employer. All that the recipient of this message will do is read the first paragraph to see if the message is urgent or not, and then ignore the rest. If you want your messages to be read and answered quickly, then make sure they are shorter!
2- Reduce sent messages to reduce incoming messages.
Simple yet effective move. The people who receive the most messages are the ones who send the most! If your email inbox is full of incoming messages, see how many messages you send each day.
Before you decide that email is the best way to get your message across, ask yourself: What is the most effective way to deliver this information or observation? Isn’t a phone call better? What if I go to the person in the office next door and tell him face-to-face? So, send fewer emails and receive fewer emails, so you can get more done in your business!
3- Shorter presentations stick in the audience’s memory for a longer period of time.
Have you ever attended an hour-long presentation that was filled with hundreds of bullet points, numbers, and information? Were you able to remember anything of it after it was over? And if you did, how much of the show did you remember?
You probably remembered very little, so now that you’re the one making the decisions and the ones making the presentations, this agony is for the attendees. The fewer points, the easier it is for them to remember more of them. As much as possible, try to keep the number of main points in your presentation to no more than three. Also, if you can finish the show in less time by ten or twenty minutes, you will undoubtedly gain more friends!
4- Change the usual meeting time from 60 minutes to half an hour.
Have you ever wondered why all meetings are limited to one hour at least? Not because the best meetings last an hour, but for the very simple reason that all calendars allow you to organize your appointments into one-hour slots. (not less). But, did you know that some of the best and most productive corporate meetings don’t last more than 15 minutes?
This is what will happen when you reduce the duration of your meetings from an hour to half an hour or less:
- Start and end dates will become more accurate.
- More people will attend your meetings and not skip them.
- You will be able to communicate information faster.
- Attendees will be able to remember the content of the meeting better because they receive less information.
5. Schedule fewer tasks.
This step may seem strange and illogical to you, but it is very effective! Many people often schedule much more daily tasks than they can actually do. as their to-do list may include 20 things, but they will only be able to accomplish 10 tasks.
In such a situation, when you fail to complete all the tasks that you set for yourself, you will often feel frustrated and deficient in your work, which leads to low energy and decreased productivity. On the contrary, when you cut the number of tasks in half, you will be able to finish them early, which makes you feel excited and energized and motivates you to do some of tomorrow’s work!
6- Set yourself fewer goals.
Are you one of those people who sit down at the start of each new year and set a slew of goals for the year?How many of those objectives have you met by the end of the year?Did you really manage to learn a new language, acquire the skill of playing an instrument, travel around the world, buy your dream home, open your own business, reach your ideal weight, read 50 books, and… and.
You, like the vast majority of us, most likely did not.The solution to this problem is very simple: set yourself fewer goals. When you shorten your goals from 20 to just two or three, you give yourself more time to focus on each goal, and the year won’t end until you’ve achieved them all. It’s just like scheduling daily tasks: less is always more.
7- Reduce your food intake to increase your energy
We have always been told that food is the source from which we get the energy needed to carry out our activities, but in our day, we consume food much more than we need. Instead of providing us with energy, it consumes our energy for digestion!
Haven’t you noticed that you always feel sleepy and tired after eating a hearty meal, while your activity increases if you are satisfied with a small, light meal? So be careful not to eat more than you need, and instead of one huge meal, divide your meals into small amounts throughout the day while making sure that they contain the largest possible amount of beneficial nutrients.
8- Make fewer decisions
When you surround yourself with a lot of choices (whether in terms of food, work, clothing, etc.), you will have a hard time choosing at the expense of doing more useful things. When you have a lot of clothes, for example, it will take you longer to decide what to wear, how to match colors, choose the right bag and shoes, etc. The opposite of what it would be like if you had fewer clothes
Always try to reduce your decisions by shortening and limiting the options available to you in order to save more time to accomplish the most important and useful tasks.
9- Reduce your baggage when traveling.
How many times have you carried a lot of baggage with you when you travel and discovered after you returned from your trip that you only used 10% or less of what you carried with you?
This happens often, so next time, make sure you stick to just one small bag. The less baggage you have when you travel, the easier it is to get around the airport and the better chance you have of enjoying your destination.
10- Work fewer hours.
Have you ever heard of Parkinson’s Law? This law states: “The work extends to occupy the time space available for its completion.” In other words, if you give yourself two hours to complete a task, it will take exactly two hours to complete it, but if you give yourself one hour to complete the same task, you will be able to finish it within one hour as well!
When you apply Parkinson’s Law to your life and reduce your working hours, you will find that you are more able to complete your tasks faster, even though it used to take you longer in the past. Of course, it is important to give yourself enough time to complete your work, but be careful not to give yourself too much time so that your work does not stretch to take up that time space.
This was a list of 10 practical ways to help you do more work in less time, applying the saying: “less is more.” Of course, you can find more ways and means to ensure that you can accomplish a greater number of tasks in a shorter amount of time and with less effort. Share with us your most important daily habits or strategies to increase productivity and work more efficiently with less time.
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