Map Your Way to Working Smarter

In today’s business world, if you ask someone how they are doing they’ll say they’re busy. Yet, if you get a chance to actually stop them and ask why, they’ll ultimately say they have too much on their plate and they’re just trying to get by. This new just getting by world we live in is not effective or efficient. Getting your work done at work has all but disappeared. We bring work home and at times, we even do it on vacation. This way of working is not going away. As a result, if we want to change this, we need to learn how to work smarter, not harder.

I will introduce to you, over a series of segments, tips and tricks that will get you off the hamster wheel at work and put you on your path to getting things done.

Like all changes in life, you need to understand where you are today so you know where you are going tomorrow. Benchmarking your current state is the first key to success and the first step to getting things done. Capturing on paper what it is you actually do versus what you think you do will get you started on the path to working smarter, not harder.

Why benchmark?

Just like a GPS system, in order to get to your destination (in our case working smarter) you need to understand where you are today and what it is you do that’s making you work harder. If you don’t do this, you won’t know what to change in order to work smarter. So how do you do this? You need to map it out. The two best tools to do this are:

• Process map your ways of working 
• Create a value stream map that outlines how the overall stream of your activities interacts with other departments and/or areas in your organization.

Draw a picture of how you currently work. This visual representation will shed light on your issues and will provide focus on what needs to be improved instantaneously. Once this is complete, determine how you will change your ways of working that will allow you to work smarter, not harder. In summary, understanding where you are today will allow you to change your habits to create the future you want.

Watch all of Adriana’s BizTV Canada videos

1. Map your way to working smarter
2. Back to the future
3. Managing priorities
4. Meet all day, work all night
5. What is value? 

What tools do you use to work smarter and not harder? Feel free to leave a comment below or shout out to us on Facebook or Twitter. Of course, you could always write your own blog post on the subject and share it with us… We’d love to read it!

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