How to Work Smart and Fast

While some corporate cultures still worship at the altar of overtime and eating at your desk, larger portions of the working world are realising the key to productivity lies not in hours clocked or how frantic you are, but how much you get done, and how well you do it. 

FOCUS

Your focus is a high-value commodity. Advertisers want it, algorithms are designed to keep it for as long as possible, and the growing expectation for instant communication and output delivery has made it almost impossible to work methodically. 

The key to working smart and fast is in taking control of your focus. Below are some tried and tested methods to regain your focus, and ensure the time spent at your desk, is time well-spent. 

Founder/Director of Patch Creative, Jimmy Patch, graphic recording and using the illani MOVE workstation.

STOP TASK-SWITCHING

The human brain is not built to focus on a million things at once. It’s barely built to focus on two things at once. Multi-tasking, or Task-Switching as it’s known in psychology, means shifting your attention from one task to another. It involves jumping from task to task, requiring your brain to shift gears, interrupting that all important process that enables deep focus. Deep focus is where the good stuff lives – it’s getting in the zone, and it’s also where the bulk of the work gets done. 

Devote blocks of time to one task. It does not slow you down. Multi-tasking feels like we are getting more out of our time, but it’s a false economy. The loss of deep focus means you are never really giving a task the attention it needs, and so it takes longer and longer to fully complete, and when it is finished, it’s not as refined as it should be. It hasn’t benefitted from your committed attention, and it’s not a fair approximation of your best work. 

This doesn’t mean you can’t multi-task at all. Studies show that when it comes to doing two things we know how to do exceptionally well – walking and talking, for example, it’s perfectly effective, but you’re better off giving your full attention to tasks more complex than those we can do autonomously. 

PLANNING

Invest time to plan your work, even if you’re stressed. Prioritise your tasks. What is onerous, what is important, and what is urgent? Urgent, then important. You will find your stress decreases as the more time sensitive tasks are completed.

Determine how much time you need to do these tasks comfortably. Allow for down-time; resting, sleeping, eating, and decent breaks. If a task takes 10 hours, that doesn’t mean you wake at 5am and send it off at 5pm. You need time to eat, to sleep, to exercise, walk your dog, stare at the wall eating chips, talk to your loved ones. A ten-hour task is often a two-day job. Plan for your down time as you would any other task. 

WORK WITH INTENTION 

Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why do you care about it? Not every job is going to change the world - sometimes you just need a paycheck, but reminding yourself what that paycheck enables can be enough to re-dedicate you to the task. 

Remembering what you’re working for, and why, will help you emotionally connect to the work in front of you. 

BOUNDARIES

Once you’ve worked out the above, use this information to defend your boundaries. Someone wants you to do something now, that you know can wait? Tell them.  Someone wants you to deliver something in a timeframe too tight to get it done? Tell them that too. Sometimes you have to push yourself to the limit, but that should be sometimes, and it should be for adequate reward – be it strategic or monetary. Ignore this for too long, and you’ll burnout without being rewarded for it. 

ERADCIATE DISTRACTIONS

Not everyone can turn off their phone – people have vulnerable loved ones, young kids, are a sleeper agent moonlighting as a graphic designer… no matter your situation, you can escape your phone. Give important callers their own ring/message tone and put that bad boy on the other side of the room. It can take discipline, but remember – your phone is a product built by people who make money out of stealing and securing your attention. 

Do you have email and social media notifications? Do you really need them? If you’re checking your emails periodically throughout the day, review whether you need that information interrupting your train of thought spontaneously. Those little distractions add up. You may not think it is costing you, but those constant interruptions steal your focus, and are having a significant impact on the way your brain behaves. 

INVEST IN YOUR REST 

Our life should be determined by our passions, not our jobs, but in a busy world with rising costs of living, this can be hard realise on a daily basis, and work can become more important that anything else. If you find rest and downtime falls to last place on your To Do list, prioritise it over less urgent tasks and schedule it in like you would anything else. Some days you have burn the midnight oil, but that shouldn’t be every day. To do good work, you have to rest. Lack of rest leads to burn out, illness, and poor concentration resulting in lacklustre work. Make time for the things you enjoy or you’ll take it out on your work anyway.  

As wise Tumblr user somnayjack-writes once said, if you don't schedule time for maintenance, your equipment will schedule it for you. 

RESPECT YOUR WORKSPACE 

You deserve to work in a calm environment conducive to your work goals. Your work space should support you to achieve everything you’re aiming for. If you are the captain of your destiny, your workspace is your ship. 

Keep your desk clean – some people are clutter bugs, I know I am, and they will pry the assortment of dried flowers and seashells on my desk from my COLD DEAD HANDS, but I probably don’t need the 30-odd used post-it-notes from finished projects littered around my keyboard like sad confetti. 

Ensure your materials are fit for purpose. Get rid of things that are broken – I don’t know who needs to hear this, but you will not find a use for that old mouse caked in a sticky layer of dust. Invest in a decent chair, or a stand-up desk if you need it, and ensure your back and neck aren’t taking the strain that your 80 year-old-self will want to kick your ass for (which of course, they won’t be able to, because of what you did to their joints).  Ensure your workspace is purpose-built for the unique work you do. Do you need a second screen? Do you need an angled work surface to support your neck? Do you work in varying environments and need something you can pack-up and take with you? 

Work smart and work fast by taking control of your focus and putting yourself first.