What is your best tip to work more efficiently?

To help working professionals achieve better efficiency, we asked entrepreneurs and business professionals for their best insights. From working on things early to organizing by difficulty, there are several strategies that may help you work more efficiently for years to come. 

Here are 11 ways to work more efficiently:

  • Invest in Outsourcing 
  • Respond to Change Quickly
  • Adopt New Technologies
  • Maintain a Positive Attitude
  • Create a Schedule
  • Focus on One Task at a Time
  • Work on Things Early
  • Find Your Most Productive Time of Day
  • Reward Yourself After Tasks
  • Turn Off Your Phone
  • Organize by Difficulty 

business owners who contributed to this article

Invest in Outsourcing

Outsource tasks like writing thank-you notes or mailing cards. Hiring an outside service to complete simple but effective tasks like keeping in touch with your clients can save your company time. It’s easy to get caught up in tasks that another service provider can easily do, so investing in outsourced companies can help your entire company work more efficiently.

-David Wachs, Handwrytten

Respond to Change Quickly

Work more efficiently with agile principles. By being more responsive to changes and improvements, your teams can work more efficiently. Agile incorporates daily stand-up meetings that help address issues in a timely manner and get timely feedback in the process. The team is trained with a more generalist mindset, can minimize bottlenecks and delays.

-Debra Hildebrand, Hildebrand Solutions, LLC

Adopt New Technologies

Research and seek innovative solutions to business problems that can increase efficiency in your workflows. In some cases, this may involve adopting new technologies. Our Spiral Wound trenchless piping system works efficiently by utilizing a mechanical process that is truly trenchless, making installation quick and noninvasive. Staying adaptive is key. 

-Ryan Shallenberger, SEKISUI

Maintain a Positive Attitude

When it comes to working efficiently, having a positive attitude can definitely help. It's not easy to always keep a positive attitude but doing so when you're tackling challenging tasks will make you more likely to stick it out. It's easy to keep track of time rather than results, and it's easy to give up when frustrated. But if you allow yourself some grace and remind yourself that you will get through things eventually, you'll find yourself keeping a more steady pace as you work rather than working in bursts. Happy people are productive people. 

-Nick Santora, Curricula

Create a Schedule 

It can feel overwhelming when you're looking at a long to-do list. These are great to start out with to help you see what needs to get done. However, just working off a to-do list will undoubtedly cause some stress. Take that list and turn it into a schedule. This way, the task gets done, and you’re more organized rather than scrambling from one thing to the next, You can also take this schedule and further prioritize it 一 doing big tasks first or getting things leftover from the day before out of the way. Either way, managing your time with a schedule will help with working more efficiently. 

-Carey Wilbur, Charter Capital

Focus on One Task at a Time 

Agile is one of the best ways to be more efficient in your business processes. With our elite team of agile coaches, we have helped to transform many businesses in different industries to achieve greater efficiency and productivity. Agile is a highly effective way to manage change in a collaborative team environment. By focusing on one task at a time from beginning to end, many companies can improve quality and meet or exceed customer expectations.

-Michael Thompson, Lurn Agile

Work on Things Early

In order to work more efficiently, my top tip is to schedule things with plenty of lead time. Let’s say you need printed materials for a large meeting or a presentation. Rather than printing those the day before, schedule it out for a week or possibly even a week and a half before needed. Building in extra time will help keep you from scrambling to get things done at the end of the process. This also gives you more time in case you have to adjust course or make changes. Working with efficiency isn't just about getting things done and moving on. It’s about making your habits efficient as well. So if you can get into the groove of scheduling everything a little more in advance, you'll always be working at the highest level possible without undue stress. 

-Eric Blumenthal, ZoePrint

Find Your Most Productive Time  

I have been a morning person for as long as I can remember. Effectively using my morning contributes directly to how productive my day is. I am my most creative in the morning as well. I make sure to block off time to work efficiently and without distractions. Utilizing my mornings also takes the pressure off of working throughout the day. If I can get a large part of my work done in the morning, I can focus on being present in my business for the rest of the day.

-Tirzah Shirai, Blink Bar

Reward Yourself After Tasks 

My advice is to use Brian Tracy's "Eat That Frog" method to master your time management skills and work more efficiently. It's based on Mark Twain's advice, which says, "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first." In essence, "eat that frog" means nothing else than first work, then pleasure. 

The best approach is to identify the hardest and the most critical tasks for the day and do it first. In the morning, we have the highest energy, motivation, and focus when dealing with the most demanding things. You can use this momentum to get the toughest challenge out of your way and create a feeling of accomplishment for the rest of the day. After "eating the frog," you will feel relieved and have additional energy to tackle your other tasks.

-Dorota Lysienia, LiveCareer

Turn Off Your Phone 

The best tip to working more efficiently is to manage your time and tools as efficiently as possible. Turning off phone notifications can help you better focus on the work at hand and allow you the opportunity to get more projects done without the distraction of other people. Although the apps on your phone can be great for communication, they can be a distraction at times. Control when you are available and busy because it’s essential to working more efficiently.

-Jason Butcher, CoinPayments

Organize by Difficulty 

My number one tip to working more efficiently includes breaking down tasks into three different steps: low hanging fruit, moderate tasks, and core tasks. The key is to do this the night before. Efficiency is all about momentum. So start with the low-hanging fruit. Remove those from your list first. This positive feedback will motivate you to tackle the harder moderate tasks and then the core tasks. Depending on time, I usually undertake a moderate task, followed by a core task, followed by a moderate task to mix up my day. This has helped me be more efficient in my work

-Mogale Modisane, ToolsGaloreHQ

About the Author(s)

 Brett  Farmiloe


Founder & CEO, Markitors
two young black entrepreneurs working at a computer and high fiving each other