In a recent blog, I covered the basic definition of working smart and provided a helpful tip to assist you in your efforts to working smart. The first tip is to work intentionally. Working intentionally requires you to think about your outcome and manage the information that will help you get there and let go of the rest.  This is much like the idea of think before you act, however, it has huge implications when it comes to managing information, since most of us are so awash in it.

So the next tip is this:

• Prioritize your focus.  There’s not enough time to do everything. You don’t have time to put everything neatly away, there’s not enough time to stay up on all the topics of interest, not enough time to read all the email and blogs coming in.    Manage information based upon what’s important – which is defined by the first step.  Identify and live with intentionality.    That brings a relatively narrow focus, or as the movie “City Slickers” defined it, “know what’s number 1″ – and I would add to it, know what’s number 1, and how you plan to get closer to it today.

Your job is probably not to be the “library of congress.”  A job where everything is neatly in its place, or to please everyone.  It is, for the purpose of this blog, to work smart, to live smart, and when that comes to managing information, it means narrowing the focus based upon your priorities and desired outcomes.   That’s where you want to spend your time and that’s where it’s most important to track and manage information.

I don’t need to get everything done, just the priority one items. And on the priority one items, I need a system that allows everyone who touches that to work in a coordinated, collaborative, up-to-date manner, anything short of that isn’t working smart.

Click here for more on management software.

If you asked most people, “Do you work smart?” they would
probably say, “Yes,” or something similar, perhaps in a
watered down format.  We all would like to apply a positive

attribute to ourselves, and working smart is definitely a positive

attribute.

Asking the same people for a definition might produce an interesting comment.
Let’s say for the sake of this blog that we use Ben (who I know)
at Scratch Media’s working definition:

“Working smart means choosing the most efficient use of your time
and energy before you act. (… “Think-then-do”.)”

If you continued to ask, “How do you know you’re working smart?” I bet
you would hear a very interesting flip. Beyond noticing that people
dance a bit on that question, if you are like me, you would hear
them flip or switch from talking about working smart, to talking
about working hard.

Why?  Are we confusing the two?

Actually, if you ask people to “work smarter,”  you will find the
mental translation from working smart to working hard to be even
clearer.

In fact if you ask people to work smarter, and/or purchase
software to help them work smart, what you will likely hear
back is not only a flip between working smart and working hard,
but also a bit of a push back that will sound like either:

1. I don’t have time… “I’m already working as fast as I can… I don’t
have time to add one more thing…” (you know like working smarter).

2. I don’t have capacity… “I’m already working as hard and long as I
can, I can’t stay longer or add one more task/requirement to my work load.”

In both situations, working smarter, when it comes to managing information,
looks like an additional task to an over burdened schedule – not a
way to reduce the work load.

This is important.  Working smarter looks like an intrusion upon
our current work habits, and like it or not, we are creatures of habit…
we are comfortable with our habits.  We may even buy software to help us work smarter,
but it doesn’t mean we use it (read change our habits)… because that
would feel like more work.  Changing habits is very tough work.

I don’t know if this is just true in the US, but in the US when it comes
to effectively managing information, we struggle at working smart and it feels like
low value drudgery to many… but we are good at working hard.

Interestingly, what comes back to the prompt to work smarter is usually a
push back, not a “Sure, help me, or teach me how.” Think about that for a
moment. How did we get to the point where working smart is not
something we have time or capacity for?

Most of us struggle with, if not resist the challenge, the prod, the invitation,
to work smarter… although we wouldn’t admit it to others and certainly not
to ourselves.  We don’t work smarter for all sorts of reasons, even though we
live and work in the information age.

Why?  I think in part because it involves changing habits which provide
some level of comfort.  We get comfortable with our habits, our way of
working, and then we defend against changing them.

If you think about it, sticking with old information management habits,
as fast as things change, is probably the opposite of working smart.

Bottom Line:
Most of us manage information in a variety of ways that are personally
comfortable, but a long way from working smart.   And in working comfortably,

we actually make work harder for ourselves.

But before I finish, let me leave you with perhaps the biggest secret to
beginning to work smarter.  No, it doesn’t have to do with buying our
ManagePro software.  Here’s a hint, it involves no work, just changing
what’s between the ears.   Well actually that is work, but not on the timecard.

The biggest secret to working smarter, is to stop assuming (defending)
that you already do work smart, and embrace the need, the opportunity to
continually improve at working smarter.   That’s it.  That’s the shift.

Today; give yourself a break.  Stop defending that you’re already doing
everything possible, and instead, start looking for opportunities to learn to work
smarter, and I’ll share some tips for managing information that will help
you get a step up in the next blog.