I work so hard and still not so successful, what's the matter with me? Well does that
happen to you, do you give your best but you don't feel like you have achieved anything
doing it all? Well that's exactly what happens to everyone whether we are at work or whether
we are at school or probably doing the household chores or just planning a normal day in our
life. Well we have been always taught that the key to being productive or achieving as
much as you can is only when you get more work done. Well let me tell you it's actually
the opposite, the truth is that you can do less work and yet be more productive and end
up achieving a lot more. Now how do we do that? Well that’s what I'm here for, I’m
Niharika you're watching us on Skillopedia the place to learn skills for the real world
and I'm gonna help you out with some easy steps for which you don't have to work really
hard but you can still be very productive. Well let's look at the step one that is “identify
the most important tasks”. Now I believe that not all work is equally important, some
are a little more important and some are not so important and other are just not important.
Now if you want to work smart, it's time for you to identify the most important tasks and
get them first. It's really stress reducing because you get done with the most important
ones and then you can carry on with the others. Now after having done that you can then focus
on you know one of those less important works or just have someone else to do it for you.
In fact you can totally eliminate that work, well which is not important why to do it,
why do you want it to be a part of your tasks, right? The second step is “practice focusing”.
Now focusing is the art of devoting your attention to just one thing at one time. The reason
we must do that is because your work is important. Now the kind of work requires your full attention
and your focus. If you focus on say a report you want to prepare, you will complete it
in 30 minutes. But if you are doing too many things at one go, you're not gonna finish
that, it's gonna take a lot of time. So it's important for you to give you a complete attention
to it on the other hand if you get that report done and at the same time check your email,
check your Facebook, check your personal Instagram account… your attention is wandering, as
a result the quality of your work will also go down. So why do you want to do all of that
when you can just focus on one thing, so make sure that you focus on one single thing at
a time. Well here's the third step, “follow your body clock”. Have you heard of some
people who tell you that they are ‘night owls’? Well I used to be one too but yeah,
these people can do a lot of work in the night and that's when they are like most active,
but on the other hand, someone like a friend of mine well she can't just accomplish things
at work only. Yes, so she wakes up in the morning, she goes to work and that is the
only time when she can get these things done, so everyone follows a different body clock.
Now if you want to be productive you need to identify your body clock and make sure
that you schedule your most important work while your body allows you, while you are
super active and focused. Now this is very important especially when you want creativity
in your work. Of course your quality, creativity can only help you to do a better job, right?
You want to be unique, so follow your body clock. It's time for you to “play on your
strengths”. In any game of sports whether it's Tennis, whether it's Football, we are
always instructed to use our strengths. Now why does the coach tell you to do that? Well
because when we use our strengths, we end up playing really well. Now doing work, should
also follow the same principle you can work better, if you know what your strengths are.
If you know that what you are really good at. So for example typing is your strength,
but you better start writing that report on your laptop before others do it or before
you do some other jobs. Because if you work with your strengths at first your work will
get over on time and of course you will have more time for the other things, right? The
next one is “being exceptional”. Now being exceptional, is being very unique and really
great at something. We are all exceptional in different things… yes, every person is
different. However we go about being average in life because we don't invest our time and
efforts in doing few things that we are good at but you want to do everything, right? Now
we would rather do everything to make ourselves feel good about getting more work done, but
hey, the truth is that we don't have to do so much. You will do a better job on something
that you're really good at. So invest your time, invest your efforts in something that
you're absolutely amazing and that will help you to be exceptional. Here's the next step,
“revive yourself”. Well reviving means to energize yourself. Let's face it guys,
we get crazily tired doing too much work in a single day and before you know it, it all
starts affecting your work, the quality goes down, your body is super exhausted, your mind
is really tired and I'm sure that's not a good job that you do. Therefore I would strongly
advise you to revive yourself, how do you do that? Well you need to get a good sleep…
yes, taking frequent breaks throughout the day is also important. Devoting at least a
day or a week to relax is extremely essential and then of course go on a vacation at least
once in a year, you have to go on a vacation to revive yourself. The next one is to “use
the best tools”. Now I remember an incident where me and my sister was really little and
we were helping my mom to bake a cake. Now the cake didn't turn out to be really nice
and fluffy, so we were really upset about it but my mother said that you know what's
the reason behind this? Because we didn't use a great quality of floor… yes, because
we were sad that we had learned something so important but we didn't do a good job.
So you must use the best tools to do it. Now if your job is related to a research on the
Internet, well use the fastest internet available. So that you know you are quick at your work.
For example you are going to clean your house, well use the best equipment to clean it. I
mean you don't want to get stuck cleaning the house the whole weekend, if you have the
right tools you're gonna finish your job really fast. So use the best of tools. Well here's
the next step and one of the most important one, “set the deadlines”. You know sometimes
we are so obsessed with doing work perfectly that we just keep improvising we keep editing
our projects and you know our work just goes on forever. Now if we set a deadline for our
work, we are forced to start the work on time and finish it by the time we have our deadline.
So this definitely saves time and it also brings discipline in the way we work, which
is really important and of course your work gets done a lot more faster and the quality
of the work is so much better. So make sure that you set deadlines. So people thank you
for watching this session with me today, well I believe that if you follow what we have
just discussed, you will know that you will eventually be excellent at your work. So please
apply these rules and tell me how it has changed and worked for you. I'll be back with some
more lessons for you but before I go please do subscribe to our channel Skillopedia the
place to learn skills for the real world.