Work Smarter Not Harder, or Just Do It?

Have you ever said, “There has to be a faster way to do this”? Work smarter, not harder, right? In principle, it’s a great idea to find faster ways to get things done. But, you have to consider if the time you spent to find a faster way to do it is going to make up for your loss of production while you find the quickest way. Sometimes, you can spend more time trying to figure out how to do it faster than you would if you just did it. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about when to look for ways to do things quicker and when to just put in the grunt work to get it done. 

Keelie often takes longer to do a task than what’s necessary, because it is the only way she knows how to do it. Rather than taking the time to find the shortcuts, she just takes the extra time to get the task done. 

Austin, on the other hand, loves to find faster ways to do things. Even if it is as simple as saving a couple of clicks, he knows he can shave off a lot of time by finding a faster way to do something.

Should You Find a Faster Way to Do Things?

There are times when it’s worth it to spend the time needed to shorten a project. Other times, you’re really just shifting your energy from getting the work done to brainstorming how to do it faster. Here are a few things to ask yourself before deciding. 

1. Do You Know Where to Start on Finding a Faster Way?

Maybe you already have an idea of an app, tool, or shortcut that could make a task go faster. But, if you have to start from ground zero on research, then it’s important you make sure the time sacrifice will be made up later on. 

2. Is This An Ongoing Task? 

It’s much more of a no-brainer to find a faster way to get things done if you have to do it from week to week. Over the course of a month, year, etc. you could save yourself significant time and increase your production. 

3. Do You Know How Much Time or Money it Will Save You?

Even if it is an ongoing task, it might not make sense to change the way you do it. It’s best for you to look at how much time it’s taking now, and what those tradeoffs will be. You may find that there are additional costs associated with being “more efficient”, but it’s not worth the amount of production you’ll save. 

For example, I often find that people want to automate aspects of their business. However, automation usually comes at a cost and if you are not doing enough production to cover the cost of the tool, it might not be a good idea. 

4. Am I Just Avoiding This Project? 

Sometimes, I think that finding a faster way to do a task is a form of avoiding work. Maybe it is a job you don’t want to do. In our business, we have a lot of manual tasks that are just clicking, pasting, and require grunt work to get them done. No one really wants to do them, but the only way to get them done is just to do it. 

Things You Can Do To Speed Up The Process

If you do decide that you want to speed up the process, there are a few main ways you can do this. 

Tools

These tools can be paid or free. Depending on the task, you may be able to automate parts of it or entirely. For example, you may have:

• Auto-responders for your emails, texts, or chat boxes
• Auto-billing

Assistants

Sometimes, tools can be costly and not worth the price. But, paying an assistant to do the manual work can boost your productivity and not cost as much. 

Shortcuts 

Whether it is an actual keyboard shortcut or some other type of shortcut, you may be able to find ways to save steps. One of the ways we do this in our business is to create writing templates for clients so that we are just making a copy of this for the new assignments each month. 

Closing

Maybe you’re looking to contract out some of your work to help smooth out your workflow and get things done faster. R5 Website Management can help you with these tasks.

Email us at [email protected] to get started today!

Until next week, get out there and start breaking the mental chains that are keeping you from producing!