What would you say if I told you that overworking doesn’t equal a productive worker?

This may sound a little controversial and provocative, but so many of us (including me in the past) work longer and longer hours, and so we feel we must be “hard workers”. It was quite a wake-up for me a few years ago when I learnt that productive work is when we work Smarter, NOT Longer and Harder. Longer and longer hours of hard work negatively impact our well-being and resilience. We become more reactive, less intuitive, less able to think flexibly, less creative and less connected with our colleagues (to name just a few of the detrimental impacts it can have).

Quite regularly, I hear clients talk about how overworked they are and how overwhelmed they are becoming.

So what’s the answer?

People I work with have found the following strategies most useful:

1) Change their mindset about what productive work actually is.

2) Find their ways of working smarter. This can cover so many areas, such as tools for prioritisation of their work, impactful time management, effective delegation, how to have effective meetings or when and how to put boundaries in place.

The positive impact of suddenly realising how much control we actually have over our days and our work is substantial.

So, how can you work smarter rather than harder today? I would love to hear what measures you put in place, so do share.