Work Smarter

“Work smarter, not harder” has been a key phrase that I’ve loved my whole career.

You’ve heard it before, haven’t you?

Work smarter, not harder, is such a simple and efficient thought. It should be easy to do, right? RIGHT?!?!

Well, it’s not as easy as you want it to be. I believe that it involves re-programming your mind to focus on your goals and the tasks you need to do to get you where you intend to do to reach your goals.

Here are some of the challenges you may be facing right now:

• You have a lot of people who are competing for your time and attention
• You want to help everyone who needs you
• You want to answer your family’s, your client’s and your team’s questions quickly, so that you can move on to the tasks you need to concentrate on.

At the end of the day, you feel like you’ve been pulled in many directions because you’ve answered everyone’s questions and put out fires everywhere. While you may have some satisfaction that you’ve helped so many people, it’s left you drained because you now need time and attention to focus on the visionary tasks for your business.

Here’s some relief for you. It’s how your brain has been conditioned to respond. In fact, there was a study done by Microsoft about the ability to re-focus on a task after an interruption.

In the “Disruption and Recovery of Computing Tasks: Field Study, Analysis, and Directions” by Shamsi T. Iqbal, The University of Illinois & Eric Horvitz, Microsoft Research in May 2007, the researchers analyzed the multitasking behaviour of computer users on the suspension & resumptions of daily tasks.

The researchers discovered that with every interruption, such as an email alert or instant message alert, it took the participants’ focus off their task and an average of 10 minutes to resume focus on their task.

Here’s an excerpt from the study:

We found that participants spent on average nearly 10 minutes on switches caused by alerts, and spent on average another 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the type of interruption) before returning to focused activity on the disrupted task.

In some cases, it took the participant up to two hours of time to go back to the original task they were working on because they lost the context of what they were previously working on.

We found that 27% of task suspensions resulted in more than two hours of time until resumption. In interview, users attributed long delays to the loss of context associate with the task switch.

And this study was conducted in 2007. Today there are many more interruptions to your focus. Today, we have more alerts from email, text messages, Slack messages, phone calls, Facebook messenger, LinkedIn messages, and all the other social media platforms you’re plugged into.

Today, when an email or a message comes in, my wrist dings and vibrates from my smart watch, seconds later, my smart phone tings and then I hear it through my computer’s speakers.

With all of this increased alerts for your attention, is it any wonder that you stop what you’re doing to respond? It must be urgent if someone took the time to send you a message and you’ve received multiple alerts.

If you are interested in working smarter, not harder in these times, then you get to practice putting your phone on “Airplane” or “Do Not Disturb” mode. Let people know that you need time to focus. Set this firm boundary for yourself. Then, focus on the task at hand.

Doing these simple steps will train your brain to focus for longer and longer periods of time and you’ll be able to easily work smarter, not harder.

I believe that you have the potential inside of you to BE who you want to be, to DO what you’re passionate about and to HAVE the success you’re striving for. It’s in you.