We are all looking for ways to streamline our efforts at work – after all, who doesn’t want to get more done in less time? The idea of working smarter and not necessarily harder is not a new concept. It is one that the business and self-help industries have spent years tackling through thought leadership and research.

Unfortunately, many people falsely assume that smart work can completely override the need for hard work, which simply isn’t true. It takes hard work to learn how to work in a smarter fashion. It takes hard work and discipline to implement new business strategies and perspectives.

It is only when working hard and working smart find a symbiotic relationship that true power in business productivity and effectiveness are found. With that said, I’m going to talk about 3 principles that you need to implement in order to strike a beautiful balance between the two.

1. Delegate Non-Essential Tasks

This one should be a no-brainer, but time and time again people get stuck in the rut of doing things that aren’t the best use of their time or their talents. Outsourcing mind-numbing or repetitive tasks can be an immediately effective and a smart way to free up your workday time, so that you don’t have to work so hard to complete everything on your, probably lengthy, to-do list.

If you could cut that list of daily obligations from 10 things to 6, would you find yourself less stressed and with more bandwidth to truly pour your heart and soul into your day’s workload? Chances are good that that answer to that question is a solid, “yes!” But yet so many people refuse to let go of those things that someone else could easily handle.

Perhaps it is because of a need to feel in control, or worry that the person handling those tasks would not do it properly. Regardless, if you put in the hard work upfront of hiring the right person for the job the first time around, you will be saving yourself an incredible amount of time down the line.

Download a Free Delegation List Sample Exercise to help you identify more activities to delegate, by going to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/delegation-list-sample/.

2. Avoid the Siren Call of Multi-Tasking

While multi-tasking tricks our minds into believing we are getting more things done at one time, we are actually just taking longer to accomplish small tasks, while simultaneously overloading our brains and producing subtle levels of stress that our bodies struggle to release.

Scientifically speaking, our brains are not even wired to do multiple things at once; they are just really, really good at switching back and forth quickly, fooling us into thinking we’re being hyper-productive.

If your goal is to work smarter and not harder, then you will need to re-evaluate how you look at the effectiveness of single tasking. By focusing solely on one activity at a time, you will not only be more likely to do the task with excellence, but your brain will become less burned out and you will have less stress built up in your system by the end of the day.

3. Limit Yourself To A Few Top-Tier Tasks Per Day

We’ve all been there – staring down the barrel of a task list that is laughably long. The trick to harnessing a work-smarter attitude is to structure your week such that you are only taking on a few top-level projects each day.

For example, don’t schedule back-to-back meetings on the same day you also schedule an important client presentation and have a looming project deadline. This is setting yourself up for failure at worst, and unnecessary stress at best. You are the only person in control of your schedule, so make it work for you and not against you! By looking at your week or your month and then evenly spacing out your big-ticket items, you are using wisdom to set you up for success.

Depending on the type of work you do, you may even be able to find a pattern in your weekly tasks, and then streamline or eliminate them altogether. Why have three meetin