Work Smart or Work Hard or Both
Posted on 24 June 2010
You’ve heard, ‘Work smarter, not harder.’ And you’ve probably heard that you need to work harder from time to time. Really, it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you must work to be successful! Sitting there waiting, wishing, dreaming, won’t make it happen. Sure, dreaming is a part of the process, but far too many people get caught up in the dreams and never get off their butt and get to work. Some people (like me) can get all caught up in the big picture planning phase and never get anything really done. The concept of working smarter by planning, is good as long as you don’t fall into the trap of just planning and refining your plans.
One of the best things to do is start by making a list of steps needed to reach a particular goal. And don’t make the steps too big. It’s better to break down the goal into little steps, at least in the beginning, so that it’s easier to get started by knocking out some of the small steps. There’s nothing like checking off To Do List items to get you rolling.
One of my favorite iPod Touch/iPhone programs ever, is the outlining program called CarbonFin Outliner. When I bought it, it was $10 and had fewer features. Now it’s cheaper, has lots of editing features, view options, it syncs with a web-based version so you can access your outlines via the web, and now you can even edit online! Very cool and very helpful. The reason I like a good outliner is so I can plan all of the big steps of a project, and then break down each big project phase and add smaller, more manageable, single-step, sub-items to each big step. Checking off any of the little items takes me one step closer to my goal. And checking off one item every single day keeps me moving toward goals, even when I don’t feel up to it.
So if you don’t have a checklist system or program (paper is fine too) then get one. While paper is okay, sticky notes are not, because they don’t usually go with you, stay organized, etc. You need a real system. So… go work your list right now. (That’s what I’m gonna do.)
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1 Response to Work Smart or Work Hard or Both
Speaking of outline programs Palm has one in their app catalog called “Outline Tracker” that is supposed to be real good. I just picked it up but haven’t used it yet so I’m not sure exactly how good it is but it looks promising. Also in case you missed it Palm is having a “1/2 off” sale on almost all apps. I picked up “Outline tracker” for $10.00. Thought you might be interested if you are still using that Pre!