How to Work Less and Get More Done?

A lot of people have started online businesses hoping to be able to quit their full-time job in the near future.

But in the process, while they’re still just starting to build their business and still aren’t making much money, they’re spending so much time on their businesses that they begin to hate their lives.

Ultimately, this is reflected in their work performance, their family time, and most importantly, this sort of negativity causes mental exhaustion.

Sound familiar?

The thing is, it doesn’t have to be that way.

With a few little tweaks, you can get more done in less time. In this post, I share with you the process I used to help me build my business while working full-time, so continue reading as I spill the beans in the post here :)

Plan Your Time Right

The first step to being able to get more done in less time is to be able to plan your time right. You need to know what task you should work on today that will move you closer to your goal.

After you determine the strategy and tactics you will use to grow your business in the next 100 days, take a smaller look and determine the tasks that need to be done in the next 2 weeks to help you move closer to your goal.

After that when you wake up, determine the tasks you will need to accomplish and start taking action right away.

What this enables you to do is to eliminate procrastination or prevent you from working on unnecessary stuff.

Also, adding the 100-day goal will help you focus more on what needs to be done, and creates a little sense of urgency that makes you get more done in less time.

You could add your to-do list to a tool like Asana, Remember the Milk, or Wonderlist so that you know what you need to do. Also, checking off items that you’ve completed has a cool effect on motivating you to get more done, so don’t take this step lightly.

Use This Technique to Double Your Productivity

Now that you know the tasks you need to accomplish to get you closer to your goal and you have already added them to your to-do list, your next job is to finish doing these tasks.

The best technique that has helped me get more done while spending less time working is the Pomodoro Technique.

If you don’t know about it, it’s basically working in sprints, taking a rest, and then continuing for 4 cycles and then taking a bigger rest.

The classic example is that you work for 25 minutes, rest for 5 minutes, do this cycle 3 more times, and then take a bigger 30-minute break.

The catch here is that you need to be focusing on one task for that 25 minutes and not to get distracted, such as checking Facebook; if that happens, then you need to repeat from the beginning.

I know it may sound silly, but the results are huge.

Here’s the proof: Chris Winfield has reported that he gets 40 hours of work done in just 16.7 hours!!!

Can you believe it? This technique will help you cut your work time in half, if not more.

Glenn Allsop of Viperchill has stated that this technique is what helped him build his business to a million+$/yr business. You can read more here.

So if you’re still doubting its benefits, all I ask you to do is to try it for 1 week and you’ll see the difference yourself. Take my word for it; you won’t regret it.

The Morning is Your Best Friend

If there is one secret routine change that helped me build my business in less time, then I would say that waking up an hour earlier would be that habit.

I didn’t start doing this habit until I read The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod a few years back.

Hal makes the case clear of why waking up early helps you get more done. He even convinced Pat Flynn, who used to brag about being a night owl, to wake up early. In fact, Pat can’t stop talking about how much he likes this change in his life. You can check out his interview on The Smart Passive Income Podcast.

So what made me start my morning routine?

I read a quote from Jim Rohn in a book that made me care more about my life and habits:

“Your business growth won’t ever exceed your personal growth.”

The problem is that I didn’t have any time to grow myself. I was completely exhausted with my job, not to mention all the work I was doing to build my business.

Then Hal shared the fact that when he started doing few habits in the morning, his life has completely changed.

Why the morning?

Because no one will distract you and you won’t leave things to fate; in other words, taking advantage of extra time in the morning will prevent things from popping up which could distract you from engaging in personal growth.

So what should you do to set your day up for success?

Hal shares 6 habits, which he called the S.A.V.E.R.S. He considers these habits the most important ones you will need to completely change your life.

Here is what these habits are:

• Silence: This can be meditation or prayer. Any form of being in silence and focusing your mind on one thing, whether it’s your breath, prayer, etc.
• Affirmation: The best way to start the day is to prime yourself mentally. State the things you want to be or you want to achieve in your life, and believe that you can. Muhammed Ali told himself that he was the greatest, and he made it a true statement.
• Visualization: It’s like affirmations but instead of using words you use all your other senses. Basically, you are imagining how you want your life to be a few years from now. Think of everything. The smell of water at the beach, the touch of the sand, and so on.
• Exercise: Do a few mins of exercise to pump more blood in your circulation. You can try the 7 min workout.
• Reading: Read a few pages of a book; you might get an idea or read a quote that could completely change your life, like Jim Rohn’s quote, did for me.
• Scribing: This is a fancy way of saying journaling. You could write about how you want your day to be or your to-do list and start the day fresh.

You can do these for an hour, or for half an hour. You can also do them for a few minutes. You don’t need to take all the day doing this.

If you’re done and there’s still some time for work, you could do a couple of Pomodoro sessions. You’ll get a lot of work done in these sessions.

If there’s one habit I would credit my success to, it would be the miracle morning. So don’t take it lightly. Even my friend Ahmed Safwan was able to build his business on the side just because of his morning routine.

Your first morning doesn’t need to be perfect. You can just wake up half an hour earlier than you’re used to, and practice the habits listed above. After that, try to add more time to do some Pomodoro session before you get to work.

Over time, you’ll notice how it has changed your life.

Read More About Time Management

Using the above 3 steps, you could easily double your productivity and move your business forward. But as I said, you need to be always improving yourself.

If time management is a priority, which I think should be, at least in the first few months of building your business, then you should read more.

But I don’t mean reading for a couple of hours a day since you probably don’t have that luxury.

So, what should you do?

Read whenever you can. You can read for 10 minutes in the morning, during your morning routine. You can also read before bed for 20 mins. Read while you’re commuting. Read during your launch break.

Before you know it, you’ll realize that you’ve read a lot without taking that much time out of your schedule.

And you’ll enjoy it.

What books should you read?

Here are few that I recommend:

• Deep Work. Start with this one.
• Eat That Frog
• Getting Things Done
• Scrum
• First Things First

You could start with these books and then look for other recommendations. And if practical constraints limit your reading time or you simply prefer to listen, then listen to their audiobooks and maybe increase the speed a bit to finish more pages in less time.

Get More Work Done

You can now start getting more work done. You have a complete system to follow. Start by planning the actions you need to take, wake up half an hour earlier, use the Pomodoro Technique, and read about time management when you can.

After a week, you’ll notice the difference. All you need to do is take action.

And you’ll be able to grow your business in less time.