A Leader's Way: Working Smart

This is an interesting article by John Maxwell I picked up from The Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Working Smart
John Maxwell

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing to overlook.”-William James

Being successful is not about how hard you work—it’s about how smart you work. Michael LeBoef said, “Devoting a little of yourself to everything means committing a great deal of yourself to nothing.” In a leader’s life, there’s a big difference between activity and accomplishment. Activity is being busy. But as Henry David Thoreau once said, “It’s not enough to be busy; so are the ants. The question is: What are [you] busy about?”

Generally speaking, there are five ways that people spend their working hours. Read through the following list and determine which one best describes how you spend your time:

1. Urgent—Loud things first

You’ve no doubt heard the saying: The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Well, that shouldn’t always be the case in leadership. As a leader, you will probably encounter a lot of “squeaky wheels” in the form of complaints or requests or suggestions from the people in your organization. Some of them will be valid and merit spending your time on them. But often, oiling the squeaky wheels in your organization isn’t the best use of your time.
Writer Shelby Friedman once said, “[The] person with an hour to kill usually spends it with someone who can’t spare a minute.” Though it’s tempting—especially if you’re a people pleaser—you have to learn to discern what wheels really need grease, what ones can be greased by others and what ones will squeak no matter how much oil they have on them.

2. Unpleasant—Hard things first

Many of us are taught this concept when we’re young. It’s the “dinner before desert” mentality, and there can be some value in it. But just because something is hard doesn’t mean it should be at the top of your to-do list.

Henry Kissenger once joked, “Next week there can’t be any crisis. My schedule is already full.” As a leader, you have to constantly check your motives. If you have a strong work ethic, you may naturally want to get the harder things done first. But don’t just start in on the hard stuff before determining the value of your actions. If doing something easier is a better use of your time, then do that before you tackle the difficult tasks.

3. Unfinished—Last things first

If you’re like most leaders, you work on a day-to-day schedule. And many times your to-do list is left a little undone at the end of the day. If you have only completed eight of the 10 items on your list, the tendency is to automatically place the remaining two items at the top of your list for the following day. But that’s not always the best use of your time.

As Johann Wolfgang Goethe once said, “Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.”

Chances are, if the two items you didn’t finish a day earlier were on bottom of your list, they weren’t top priorities in the first place, and probably won’t be top priorities the next day either.

Before you spend time completing an unfinished task from the day before, take time to evaluate it in comparison to the other things you need to accomplish. If finishing the task is still not a top priority, place it at the bottom of your list again, and work on it after you finish the more important items.

4. Unfulfilling—Dull things first

Of the five styles, this one is probably the most common. If you subscribe to this notion, your tendency is to want to get boring things out of the way so you can refocus on what’s really important.

As a result, you spend time doing the dull, mindless things, like copying or faxing or reading e-mails first. But even though those things must be done, they are rarely the top priority.

Robert McKain said, “The reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first.” Don’t waste time “getting things out of the way.”
Instead, get a jump start on completing your most important task first.

5. Ultimate—First things first

Do you naturally spend time on the most important things first? Whether you do them first or second or last, they eventually have to get done for you to succeed. Commit to give your best time—right now and in the future—to your most important tasks.

Although it’s admirable to be ambitious and hard working, it’s more desirable to be smart working. You see, the key to becoming a more efficient leader isn’t checking off all the items on your to-do list each day.

It’s in forming the habit of prioritizing your time so that you are accomplishing your most important goals in an efficient manner. When you’re able to do that, it won’t be long before you exceed your own expectations as a leader.