Most of us, in the beginning, work much harder than smarter. Then, experience teaches us a few (or many) tricks, and we get to learn how to save time and effort in most of our daily tasks. Today we’d like to put some of this experience already at your disposal so that you can learn how to work smarter, not harder.
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- Train your brains constantly, the analytical as well as the creative part. Get skilled up and updated, acquire as much practical knowledge as possible, and take good care of your competences. Smart workers also understand the importance of soft skills like public speaking, sales, leadership etc., so they never miss an opportunity to develop or improve them. Smart workers know that hard work will rarely speak for itself.
- Take care of the 3 essentials you need to work smart: good health, sound wealth and strong relationships. Unfortunately, schools usually never teach a person how to take care of their health, manage money and develop the capacity for love. But they’re the essentials that enable you to reach the highest grounds.
- Time is the most precious resource in life, even more important than money. Smart workers value their time the most in life and they make sure that they manage it very wisely. Every single second counts, that’s why you need to learn how to deal with procrastination, eliminate distractions, how to focus, work in the flow, and so on.
- Understand the system and the territory you operate in, so that you can make better decisions and manipulate them to your advantage; in a moral and legal way of course, while keeping your integrity intact.
- Know exactly what you want, so you can shape a much better strategy and make much better choices. Start with the desired outcome in mind and a life vision in mind.
- Choose the right industry or market, to be exposed to more business opportunities and earn a lot more money more quickly, because a rising tide lifts all boats. Discover what markets want and plan how to benefit from this, acquiring competencies that are in great demand, but in very short supply, for example. Then, make sure you are the superstar in what you do and let people know it – The Pareto principle applies here too: the top 20 % of people get 80 % of the rewards.
- Pessimism won’t help you in life nor in business. Keep a positive outlook, no matter how difficult things are. Don’t waste any cognitive power on feeling sorry for yourself, or you’ll miss any opportunities you have, and lag behind. Keep your mind always shaped up and open to improvements and new opportunities with a problem-solving mindset.
- Carefully select opportunities. I was told once that the good ideas are far more dangerous than the bad ones: we’re experienced in spotting bad ones and know how to keep them at bay. But we could fall in love with good ones so much and so often to have the so-called “new shiny object syndrome“. Much more businesses have been ruined by (too many) good ideas than bad ones. We can drown in too many good ideas. Remember your time, energy and other resources are very limited: choose your battles very carefully. Choose opportunities with the lowest risk and maximum potential, and learn how to say no to everything else. A burnt-out worker is not a smart worker. Also, train your patience to create or wait for the one right opportunity and know how to mitigate risks.
And if you wish to use your smart working skills in a new job, check all the new positions in finance here!
