Work and Health
Five Practical Ways to Achieve More and Better Results with Less Effort
Great results will come from a more innovative approach to work. We can work smarter by following these five tips.
How Work Affects our Health and Happiness
Work-life balance has been of utmost importance to me when dealing with 12 entangled health issues that were about to ruin my life.
Coming from a cultural background with a heavy focus on hard work ethics, I struggled to achieve desired results, experienced chronic stress, and burned out unnecessarily.
Fortunately, I met some caring people who gave me valuable insights and new perspectives on productivity and became a catalyst to reduce my chronic stress and improve my productivity with more fun and less effort.
While it looks like physical activity, work has significant psychological components. Our mindset and approach to work make a substantial difference in producing different results. It is possible to achieve more with less effort.
However, less effort must be more innovative, methodical, pragmatic, and performed in a particular psychological state that I explain in this article.
As work has both physical and psychological components, it can profoundly impact our physical and mental health. The fundamental mechanism of this impact is due to stress. As mentioned in several articles before, stress is the root cause of numerous ailments.
Particularly emotional stress, when turned into a chronic state at work, can ruin our health, adversely affect productivity, and reduce the quality of life.
Working smart can contribute to better health, well-being, and satisfying life. Work-life balance is a critical point to keep in mind for good health, happiness, and fulfilling life. Here are five tips reflected from my decades of experience.
1 — Managing Priorities Effectively by Focusing on What’s Important
Our energy and time are limited. Instead of managing time, I learned to manage my priorities for my scarce time.
In my perspective, time is not manageable. Thus, the time management concept looks like a misnomer to me.
However, we can control our priority tasks based on the given time. I made two radical shifts. Replacing my to-do list with a priority list and a not-a-to-do list made me more productive and creative.
From my observations, exceptional leaders and successful professionals always focus on essential points and manage their priorities effectively.
They don’t sweat the small stuff that adds no value. Instead, they put their energies into the things that matter for their goals and refrain from distractions.
Focusing on our priorities can lower the impact of distractions. For example, while social media tools can be attractive with vanity metrics activating our emotional brain when they are not used correctly, they can cause significant distractions.
In addition, numerous other factors in the workplace create distractions, such as unreasonable demands from bosses, colleagues, or clients. In my opinion, any activity bringing no value to our goals can be seen as a distraction, even if they look or sound great from the outset.
2 — Working in a Flow State with Full Focus
The flow state is a psychological construct enabling us to become creative, productive, and happy by regulating our emotions. It is a mental process with input and facilitation producing tangible outcomes.
In this unique and natural state, we experience joy for tasks at hand as it changes the content of our consciousness at a specific time to an optimally functioning mental and physical performance.
I introduced several benefits of working in a flow state and how to enter it quickly in this article titled Three Tips to Enter the Flow State for Creativity, Productivity, Health, & Joy.
The most significant benefits of working in a flow state are stress reduction and emotional regulation. From my experience, we can produce more with less effort, create better outcomes, and perform well to achieve desired results when working in a flow state.
The quickest way of entering the flow state is a mindful approach to our tasks. In addition to concentrating and paying attention to the task at hand, we need to abstain from multitasking by focusing on a single task.
In other words, we must immerse in the task and trick the brain we own and choose the task at hand. The critical aspect of the flow state is finding the middle ground between extreme challenge and too easy stuff. The flow state happens between anxiety and apathy.
3 — Practicing Pragmatic Progress while Refraining from perfection
Until meeting Mr. Wise in graduate school, I struggled with perfection and suffered from its effects. The problem was caused by analysis paralysis.
This experienced person taught me that perfection was not needed to become successful. Approaching my work pragmatically, I produced better results with less stress and effort. I used to waste my time by gold-plating.
Looking at perfection as a distraction has changed my approach to it. While perfection sounds great emotionally, it does not make sense logically. Too much effort to perfect a small workpiece brings very little value.
Therefore, putting in 99% of our effort and gaining 1% value does not make sense. I’d instead put 10% effort and earn 90% value from my investment. From my observations, this simple mindset is one of the secrets of productive, successful, happy, healthy, and wealthy people.
Modern entrepreneurs embraced the concept of MVP (minimum viable product) as part of the agile methods. This approach works well for them as they learn while producing. Each failure turns into a learning experience. They fail fast and cheap.
Rather than failing the entire project, they fail only one iteration using MVP, such as a few weeks of work rather than a year or decade of work. Therefore, they move fast and produce more output. As each iteration includes testing and verification, the quality naturally increases.
4 — Approaching Work Methodically
The cognitive part of our brain works with patterns and structures. We make sense of the word with these structures and patterns.
When we work randomly, we get confused and lose track of tasks and activities. Confusion increases anxiety and stress hence reducing creativity and productivity. A systematic approach encourages us to work neatly, eliminating unnecessary physical and mental clutter.
All methods start with planning because it is a critical creativity and productivity tool. Thoughts flood our consciousness. Unless we organize and plan them, they mean nothing.
Another crucial yet undermined aspect of the systematic approach is documenting our tasks in a structure that can make sense to us and others. Reusing our existing assets repeatably is part of a method we can employ in our profession.
An essential methodical approach is using delegation and collaboration at work. We cannot do everything ourselves. We focus on what we are capable of and delegate tasks that we are incapable of.
In addition, by methodically collaborating with others, we save significant time and produce better results. Therefore, I always see others as collaborators rather than competitors.
5 — Using the Right Tools and Processes
After having a method that suits our work type, the next critical item is to use the right tools. Sharpening our tools is ancient wisdom referring to using the right tools for our work.
This wisdom encourages us to spend significant time improving our tools and processes. Technology allowed humanity to achieve more with less effort with efficient tools. Therefore, investing in necessary tools is essential for every profession.
Different professions require different tools. To make my point, I exaggerate a bit. For example, we cannot use a telescope to study microbes. Without a microscope, it is impossible to work with subatomic objects.
In addition, our knowledge, skills, and capabilities can serve as tools. For example, our emotional and social intelligence can make us efficient while working with others, consequently saving us significant time and reducing unnecessary stress.
Entrepreneurs need specific tools to scale their businesses. They need standardized automation. So are freelancers. For freelancers, mailing software with many functions can make the job easier.
For example, rather than writing an identical copy of an email and posting them individually to thousands of subscribers, creating a template with the appropriate fields and proper codes can reduce the effort multiple times and reduce human errors.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Don’t get me wrong. Hard work is essential to achieve our goals. I still work hard, making the required effort to complete my important tasks in the scheduled time.
However, as my primary focus is on important tasks, I produce better results in a specific time frame. Thus, my approach is working hard and smart simultaneously, which adds the optimal value to my investment.
Looking at our workload closely, we might notice that 20% of important tasks bring an 80% return on our investment time and effort. Conversely, 80% of trivial tasks might consume 100% of our time if unchecked. This undesirable situation is one of the root causes of burnout at work. Therefore, awareness of these overall stats can give valuable insights into our work.
Hard work does not mean passing the stress threshold. However, if we work hard in a flow state, we can significantly reduce our stress and increase our creativity and productivity. Paradoxically, I produced better work and health results when I learned to slow down and practiced it rigorously. Furthermore, starting the day with a spark has been the best approach for my creativity and productivity.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
Sample Health Improvement Articles for New Readers
Defeat Metabolic Syndrome and Slim Down Waistline with Three Tips
Why 442 Million People Live Diabetic and What We Can Do About it
Six Tips to Prevent Brain Atrophy and Lower the Risks of Mental Disorders
What Can We Do About NCDs Killing 41 Million People Yearly?.
Reduce the Risks of Neonatal Disorders to Prevent Infant Mortality.
Reduce the Risks of Major Diseases with Healthy Lifestyle Habits
If you enjoyed these stories, you might check this recent piece titled How to Get a Healthy Self-Employed Life-giving insight from my 40 years of employment in demanding workplaces explaining the health and well-being benefits of self-employment after tasting it as a sense of freedom. One of my entrepreneur friends, 71-year-old Maggie, used these techniques successfully, as I introduced in this story titled How a Single-Mum Reversed Her Obesity and Built up a Unicorn Business. I wish you a healthy and happy life.
I also wrote about valuable nutrients and supplements like
Boron, Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
Disclaimer: Please note that this post does not include health advice. I shared my observations, experience, and perspectives for information purposes only. If you have disease symptoms, please consult your healthcare professionals.
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