The healthy way to work – work smarter with the right tools

Working smart and not working hard – THAT is the way to go.  We all understand the pressures of an evergrowing workload, and the way that doing the occasional extra hour here and there can escalate very quickly.

This is why a recent article caught my eye. In the article it said that  Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has made no secret of the fact that he regularly works a 100-hour week. And GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt spent 24 years putting in 100-hour weeks.

This piece, ‘Think working long hours is a good thing? This is why you’re wrong’ gives food for thought. When did it become acceptable to think that the work life balance should be so skewed towards work? Scarily – it refers to a piece in The Lancet that tells how a 55 hour week (not that uncommon) can be startlingly detrimental to heart health!

Too many working hours and our health suffers alongside our productivity. No shock really. When I reflect on those times where my office has been more familiar than my sofa or gym or my family (!), I wonder how much quality work did I really deliver?

I freely admit that there are times when I work late into the evening. These late evening are partly because I have a large project on, or am catching up after a holiday or such like, but partly because I enjoy my work.

Back to my opening statement – working smart and not hard being the way forwards.  I stand by that. Working smart does NOT mean doing enough to get by, it does NOT mean not caring or delivering poor quality work, nor does it mean mastering the art of avoiding tasks and projects that might consume a little of your personal time.

What is DOES mean however, is using time wisely, and using the technology available to you to speed up processes or avoid duplication of effort. Working remotely with the right tools to be effective, collaborating rather than being an island, and really communicating – these are what really help to bring your work life balance into order.

Do you have the tools to do your job efficiently, wherever or whenever suits best?  I know that I do.