Diane Daily – Don’t work harder, work smarter.

I'm pretty darned lazy.

Let me repeat that… I'm lazy.

Yes, really.

But, don't be fooled. That doesn't mean that I don't work hard.

What it does mean is that I don't have a burning passion to get all the things done all day, everyday. I have a penchant for delaying a lot of tasks I feel aren't super necessary to accomplish at a given time, only to batch them together and get them all done at once.

I like to kill two, or ten birds with one stone.

I like to be efficient.

I don't like to work harder, I like to work smarter.

Does it mean I always work smarter? No. I could definitely improve my own ability to stop wasting time and get focused more often.

That said, as a “rebel” [see video below], I find that I have to feel a visceral pull towards completing a certain task if the consequence, downside, or penalty of not completing it is strong enough for me to budge and finally take action.

This isn't because I sit around doing nothing all day, I simply get other things done until the task I have been avoiding is burning hot.

In any event, I find that batching tasks I have been avoiding makes getting them done feel so. Much. Better.

And it's more efficient for everyone, not only for me! Making three trips to the post office clearly will use up more time to and from than one trip – so it's less efficient to make a trip each time you think you need to, and more efficient to wait until you actually need to spend that time getting there and back, and combining items to ship one one trip.

Maybe you can let the “I need to do this today” feeling chill out if you don't truly need to, and batch those tasks together another day.

My example: This week, needed to get several papers notarized and mail back some online shopping returns (I was so sad about the boots that didn't fit, sigh). Scratch that – I actually “needed” to do most of this a few weeks ago – at least according to what most people might want or expect of me!

But, the kicker that finally got me to budge was getting papers for the sale of our NJ condo notarized. I felt it was important enough, and I didn't want to delay that, to finally batch these tasks together and get them done. Whew.

Does this resonate with you? Have you found ways to batch your tasks to be more efficient with your time in your everyday life or work? Tell me about it in the comments below

That's all for today.