How to work hard and smart in business management

It’s the greatest challenge of our modern age: maintaining a healthy work-life balance and maximizing your productivity to help your business and career thrive. The last two years have significantly changed many perceptions and attitudes around presenteeism and productivity with the pandemic. It’s a complete culture change. The world we knew became even more digitalized, with most people working from home and attending meetings virtually through Zoom.

However, one of the key learnings for 2022 is when it comes to business management and your career, it’s not so much about how much time you put into it, but how you use that specified time. So, how do you work hard and smart?

Time management

Knowing how long tasks take, and finding the time to do them, is a top skill that is worth mastering, particularly if you’re looking to progress your career to higher leadership roles. If you aren’t sure how long specific tasks take, from answering emails to more significant projects, monitor yourself for a week and take notes. Once you know what you’re dealing with, you can time-block effectively. Put each task into your calendar as a block of time and aim to do the job in that allocated slot. This tool will help you concentrate on longer tasks and not get sucked into procrastination or non-urgent admin, therefore making your valuable time more productive. Being able to manage your time effectively will give you more time to relax outside of your working hours and will help to eliminate stress.

Outsource your resources

Don’t have time to do it all? No problem, find someone who can. If you have the means and budget, working with an agency can make a massive difference to your business. For example, video content has become a significant part of marketing, particularly on social media. Companies are competing with millions of other accounts, so top quality, engaging content should be high on your priority list for a successful marketing strategy. Corporate video production companies like MHF Creative are an excellent resource for making your business stand out and pushing your business to the next level. There is no shame in outsourcing tasks to others, especially to experts who will do a better job than you could do.

Get into ‘deep work.’

Deep work is the new superpower for focus and productivity developed by Professor Cal Newport. Deep work is about your ability to focus without distraction, reclaiming your concentration for a specified amount of time. By Newport’s definition, deep work is: “Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.”

Think about how you work best, remove all distractions from your environment by muting all notifications on your phone and laptop, and be strict with yourself.

Working hard and smart isn’t just about getting more done; it’s about doing your job to the best of your ability with no sacrifice to your work-life balance or business.