Tips to Work smarter not Harder

When I was young, I used to work incredibly long hours as I thought that would fuel my career success. Boy, was I wrong. Sure, I was productive over the short term. But then something funny happened.

• I started to get really tired all the time.
• I couldn’t focus anymore during the late nights.
• I began to make mistakes.
• I wasn’t as polished in my presentations.
• I realized most people didn’t even care that I was putting in the extra hours.
• I burned out.
• Over my 11 year career, I’ve learned to focus on working smarter. I’ve taken detailed notes from some of the top individual contributors and executives from companies like MTV, VMware, Cisco, Box and Optimizely.

So what did I learn?

Here’s the secret: Optimize your work life so that you maximize your results.

I’ve put together a list of the top ways to optimize your productivity.

1. Learn to say "No."
2. Sleep at least 8-9 hours
3. Don't be a night Owl. Work in between 5am-10pm not from 10pm-5am
4. Stop multitasking.
5. Take more breaks: respect your natural attention spans
6. Spend time in nature
7. Move around and work in blocks
8. Limit your to-do list
9. Measure your results, not your time
10. Build “getting ready to work” routines
11. Track what you’re wasting time on
12. Exercise daily even if you think you have no time
13. Believe that you can do it