How to Increase Efficiency and Create a 3 Day Work Week
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Productivity and efficiency are what really separates the good from the great in business. It’s what makes you feel less stressed, make more money, and ultimately what helps you become more successful in reaching your goals, but it’s definitely something all entrepreneurs have struggled with at some point. In this episode, serial entrepreneur and growth hacking strategist Denise Gosnell is sharing her productivity tips, time hacks, advice on efficiency, and her method for how you can create a 3 day work week that is actually more efficient than how you’re currently working.
Check out Denise’s Website: www.VacationEffect.com
Follow Denise on LinkedIn: @denisegosnell
HOW DID SHE GET HERE?
Denise grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, but was teased as a kid for being poor. She vowed to herself that she would become rich, which led her down a path to being a computer engineer for the first 10 years of her career. She made great money and loved what she did, but reached an income cap that wouldn’t allow her to become the millionaire that she wanted to be. She went to law school to become a patent lawyer, and made great money, but hated her work.
Now years later, Denise runs 3 businesses - a law firm, a real estate company with her husband, and a coaching company called The Vacation Effect - and manages everything successfully while only working 3 days a week and making the kind of money she always wanted to make.
WHAT LED YOU TO CREATE A 3 DAY WORK WEEK AND HOW’D YOU DO IT?
It starts by learning to look at everything from a value or results perspective and not a grind perspective. We’re so used to the hustle and being busy all the time. Our culture has convinced us that you have to grind all the time to be successful, and it breeds workaholics. You have to shift to look at results and getting things done versus how long you spent on it. You have to make that pivot by limiting the amount of time you’re willing to work.
We've been brainwashed into believing that you have to constantly be busy in order to be successful.
Take a certain amount of days a month that are for you to do whatever you want outside of your company. Allow yourself that freedom. Set boundaries for the amount of time you’ll dedicate to something. Where it may take you 50 hours a week to do something, what if you only allowed yourself 30 hours to get it done? You’d probably still find a way to get it done, but without the distractions and the excuses that we usually fill half our week with. You have to put the focus on being efficient, not being busy.
WHAT TIME HACKS DO YOU USE TO HELP WITH YOUR EFFICIENCY?
Use a timer. If you think something will take you 45 minutes or an hour, set a timer for 30 minutes and try to force yourself to get it done in that time. In reality you may not get it done, but you may only have to set a 5 minute timer after that. It saves you a lot of valuable time when you do that over the course of your work week, and you’ll start to make it a habit to be more productive and efficient on your tasks.
Related Post: How to stay Productive while Working from Home
HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO FOCUS ON?
You need to have a routine that you follow strictly every morning. Start with a brain dump of everything you need to get done. Pick the 2 or 3 things on that list that are really going to make the biggest impact while also taking the least amount of time. What are the things that absolutely HAVE to get done and will get you where you want to go the fastest? Find those levers and make those your priority for the day.
Then look at the rest of the list - the other things that won’t make as big of an impact - and figure out how you can use a time hack on each item to cut down on them. Can you use a timer? Can you batch some of them together? Find a way to cut down on the time for those items that won’t make as big of an impact. Once you’ve got your priorities and time hacks in place, put your list in order of how you’re going to work on everything for the day.
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