Jonah Chipeco

Working hard was one of the first lessons I learned in my career. My introduction to sales came from an unlikely place: working as a disc jockey. Aside from being on air, I could earn extra by selling radio advertising packages to local establishments. That meant looking for prospects, preparing proposals, and approaching business owners. Sometimes, I literally went door to door.

This was also a time when proposals were commonly sent through fax machines. There were no automated email sequences doing the prospecting for me. A lot of the work involved actual legwork.

That experience taught me to associate effort with accomplishment. The more calls I made, establishments I visited, and proposals I sent, the more productive I felt. When I later moved into a full-time sales role for an international company, that mindset followed me. I wanted to prove myself and become a regular employee, so staying late and being willing to work overtime became part of how I demonstrated commitment.

There is nothing inherently wrong with working hard. Some seasons require extra effort. The problem begins when we assume that doing more automatically means accomplishing more.

A full calendar does not always mean meaningful progress. Answering dozens of emails does not necessarily mean we worked on our most important priority. Staying late does not automatically make the work more valuable.

Over time, my understanding of workplace productivity changed.

How to work smarter is not to avoid hard work. It is to become more intentional about where we put our time, attention, energy, and judgment.

For me, that comes down to three connected disciplines: focus, communication, and execution.

What Does It Really Mean to Work Smarter?

About 10 years after I started my first job, I began to understand what “work smarter, not harder” could look like in practice. My sales and marketing background taught me that not all activities produce the same results. The Pareto Principle, often described as the 80/20 rule, became an important teacher: a relatively small number of high-yield activities can account for a large share of results.

That changed the question I asked myself. Instead of only asking, “How much work did I do today?” I began asking, “Which activities actually contribute to the result I want?”

The Eisenhower Matrix reinforced the same lesson by separating what is important from what is merely urgent. Something can demand immediate attention without contributing much to a bigger goal.

For me, learning how to work smarter starts with knowing the overall goal. Then we identify what “moves the needle”—the activities that contribute most to that goal—and build a system that allows us to repeat those activities consistently. Working smarter is not simply about shortcuts. It is about directing hard work toward the right things.

How to Work Smarter by Protecting Your Focus

Time is only part of the productivity equation. Energy is what we put into that time. I understood this more as I moved from working in my twenties to my thirties. In my early twenties, I could do face-to-face marketing, travel frequently, meet people, and move from one activity to another. Later, after recovering from an accident and experiencing changes in my energy and routine, I became more open to digital marketing and online work.

That taught me that the way we worked effectively in one season may not remain the best way to work in another. We have to become more intentional about where our energy goes.

I have been freelance writing since 2011, so I had already experienced what is now commonly called deep work. Writing requires uninterrupted concentration: time to think, organize ideas, make connections, and find a flow.

Working remotely also taught me that we are not only managing physical energy. I can spend an entire day seated in front of a computer and still feel mentally drained after moving among many subjects, projects, meetings, and requests. Protecting focus is therefore also a way of protecting mental capacity.

The Hidden Cost of Constant Task Switching

What many of us call multitasking is often task switching. We start one task, answer an email, respond to a chat, join a meeting, handle an urgent request, and then return to the original task. Our working hours are full, but our attention is divided.

Research summarized by the American Psychological Association explains that switching between tasks creates measurable cognitive costs. Even small switch costs can accumulate when we move back and forth repeatedly, and the APA notes an estimate that brief mental blocks from task switching can consume as much as 40% of productive time.

Microsoft’s 2025 Work Trend Index paints a similar picture of fragmented knowledge work: Microsoft 365 telemetry found that employees were interrupted by a meeting, email, or chat about every two minutes during core work hours. Earlier Microsoft research found that 68% of people said they did not have enough uninterrupted focus time during the workday.

Those numbers help explain why a day of remote work can still feel exhausting. A meeting requires one kind of thinking. Writing requires another. An urgent message shifts attention somewhere else. Returning to the original task means remembering where we left off and rebuilding concentration. Working smarter means noticing this mental load and creating enough uninterrupted space to stay with meaningful work.

Batch Similar Tasks Together

One way I improve focus at work is through task batching. I try to keep one or two days in my calendar free from meetings whenever possible. Those become implementation days for writing, planning, project deliverables, or other work that needs deeper concentration. When meetings are necessary, I try to group them in either the morning or afternoon rather than scattering them across the entire day.

I use the same principle for coordination. Even across different projects, coordination often requires a similar mental mode: checking Asana, reviewing updates, following up through Slack or Teams, and resolving questions. The projects may be different, but the kind of attention is similar.

Task batching does not have to mean grouping work only by project. We can batch by the type of attention required:

• Meetings can go together.
• Coordination can go together.
• Writing can go together.
• Administrative tasks can go together.

The goal is not a rigid calendar; it is reducing unnecessary task switching so the mind can stay in one mode long enough to make progress.

Related article: How Task Batching Improves Focus and Reduces the Cost of Multitasking.

Manage Your Energy, Not Just Your Time

If energy is limited, we should be intentional about where we spend it. For me, the tasks that deserve my best energy are usually the ones I cannot simply delegate, automate, or support heavily with AI. These are activities that require judgment and context.

Strategy is one example. Client coordination is another: meetings require listening, understanding context, asking the right questions, and sometimes reading between the lines.

I also reserve mental energy for quality checks, especially for creative work. AI can help produce, organize, summarize, and accelerate parts of a process, but someone still needs to judge whether the output is accurate, useful, and aligned with the goal.

A helpful productivity question is therefore not only, “How can I fit all these tasks into my schedule?” but also, “Which tasks actually require me?”

Routine activities may be delegated, automated, simplified, or supported by technology. The energy saved can go toward strategy, relationships, creativity, and decision-making.

Protect Time for Work That Actually Matters

When everything seems urgent, I try not to let the workday become completely consumed by what needs attention right now. I want part of my time to go toward at least one longer-term project that contributes to a bigger goal.

My sales and marketing background influences how I prioritize. In those fields, the question is often clear: Which activity is most likely to generate leads, create opportunities, or contribute to revenue? Those activities carry more weight. The same principle works beyond sales. Every role has outcomes that matter: improving a process, completing a project, reducing costs, strengthening customer experience, or reaching another business objective.

Urgent work asks for attention now. Important work moves us toward an outcome that matters. Working smarter requires responding to genuine urgency without allowing urgency to consume all the capacity needed for important work.

Check Capacity Before You Add More

Productivity also needs to consider capacity, not just time. We often plan workloads based on available hours without asking whether people have the attention and energy required for the work we are adding. Capacity changes with workload, responsibilities, environment, and season.

That is why I created the CAP Capacity Checklist: a simple way to step back and assess how you are currently working before automatically adding more to your plate. It can help professionals and team leaders identify where capacity may be stretched and where more intentional choices are needed.

Subscribe to my blog and I’ll update you when this will be available soon.

How to Work Smarter by Communicating More Clearly

Working smarter is not only about managing our own attention. Once other people are involved, communication becomes part of productivity. As a project manager, I have experienced rework that could have been avoided if requirements had been clearer from the beginning.

Fast-moving projects make this difficult. Sometimes a kickoff call is skipped and the team has to rely on a project brief, examples from previous work, and conversations scattered across chat or email. Project sponsors do not always want to complete an intake form or follow a template. In those situations, being proactive matters:

• ask questions,
• summarize your understanding,
• request examples,
• and confirm the expected output before implementation goes too far.

Hierarchy can add another layer. A CEO may provide the original direction, while a CMO turns that direction into the project brief that reaches the implementation team. Context can be lost as information moves from person to person. The team may deliver exactly what was written only to learn that it was not what the original decision-maker envisioned.

That is why clear written documentation and verbal alignment should support each other. Written communication creates a reference point. Verbal communication lets people clarify assumptions and confirm direction. The goal is not more meetings or more documentation. The goal is shared understanding.

Clear Communication Reduces Unnecessary Work

For a creative team, rework is a direct cost to workplace productivity. A designer reopens a file. A writer restructures content. A project manager coordinates another feedback round. Someone reviews the revised output again. One unclear instruction can create work for several people.

Not every manager or team leader has formal project management training, but a few fundamentals can prevent a great deal of back-and-forth: objective, scope, expected output, owner, deadline, dependencies, and approval process. Clear communication at work is not separate from productivity. Every clarification made before implementation has the potential to prevent rework later.

Write Instructions People Can Actually Follow: Use ACT

One way I simplify instructions is through what I call the ACT approach. An instruction should be Actionable, Clear, and Time-based. SMART goals can be useful for larger objectives, but ACT is a quick check for whether an instruction is ready to be acted on.

• A — Actionable. Can the person actually do what is being asked? Consider: “Prepare and send a team memo explaining the new work-from-home policy.” There is an action, but does the owner know the policy, have access to the distribution channel, have authority to send it, and have enough capacity to complete it? Actionable work should be realistic for the person expected to execute it.
• C — Clear. Would the person understand what a successful output looks like? “Write a memo about the work-from-home policy” leaves room for interpretation. A clearer brief identifies the audience, the key message, the response required, and the expected format.
• T — Time-based. When does the work need to happen? For collaborative work, the publishing date is not the only deadline. A realistic sequence may be first draft, review, revision, approval, and distribution. For creative work, the distribution deadline and production deadline are not the same.

ACT gives teams a quick check: Is it actionable? Is it clear? Is it time-based? When those three conditions are established, people spend less time guessing what an instruction was supposed to mean.

Don’t Confuse More Communication With Better Communication

I do not think overcommunicating is automatically bad. A president of a nonprofit I previously worked with valued overcommunicating with donors. In that context, it meant regular progress updates that built visibility and trust.

The problem is confusing frequency with effectiveness. More meetings do not necessarily create better alignment. Longer meetings do not guarantee clearer decisions. Copying more people into an email does not mean everyone understands what is happening. Posting the same information across channels does not guarantee that anyone has absorbed it.

One simple practice is asking for acknowledgement. “Please confirm that you received the updated timeline” or “Let me know if we are aligned before we proceed” creates a feedback loop. Sent does not automatically mean received. Received does not automatically mean understood. Understood does not automatically mean agreed.

Effective workplace communication also means choosing the right channel. A progress update may belong in a project management tool. A quick clarification may belong in chat. A decision that must be referenced later should be documented. A complicated issue may be better handled in a short meeting. The objective is the right information, for the right people, through the right channel, with the necessary level of understanding confirmed.

Related article: How Clear Writing and Communication Build More Effective Teams.

Write Things Down

I learned the value of writing things down before I officially worked in project management. I learned it as an entrepreneur. I started documenting important decisions on paper or in Google Docs so we could return to why a decision was made, what happened afterward, and whether the results supported it.

Documentation is not simply note-taking. It helps us think, decide, evaluate, and adjust. Instead of relying on memory, we can revisit the information and assumptions available at the time and decide whether to continue or reroute.

I have since developed a Write It Down approach, including a framework called WRITE. I will save the full framework for a deeper discussion.

How to Work Smarter by Turning Ideas Into Action

There is no shortage of ideas. They are floating around in conversations, notebooks, presentations, brainstorming sessions, and people’s minds. The bigger question is which ideas can become action. That requires execution skills.

I see this when talking with clients who want to write a book. Before completing one book, a creative client may already imagine a trilogy. A nonfiction author may have five books in the pipeline. Having ideas is exciting, but we cannot write five books at once. At some point, we have to choose one.

The same applies to organizations. A brainstorming session can produce 20 ideas and a strategy meeting can fill a whiteboard. But ideas do not create results until someone decides priority, ownership, resources, timelines, and next steps. Sometimes working smarter is not coming up with another idea. It is choosing one worth pursuing and executing it well.

Turn Information and Insights Into Decisions

Marketing produces a lot of dashboards and reports. Depending on the number of campaigns and team members involved, the information can become overwhelming. I simplify my first review by looking at two ends: What is working best, and what is producing the least value relative to the effort going into it?

The top tells us what may deserve more attention. The bottom gives us something to investigate. Should we improve it, delegate it, automate it, reduce resources, or eliminate it? Not every low-performing activity should be stopped immediately, but data should lead to a decision rather than simply another report.

I experienced this with my online school, Writing Hacks Academy. Because I was excited about building the school, I released several courses and even hired third-party course creators. A larger course library looked like progress. But when I reviewed what actually generated revenue, my main masterclass was doing most of the work through memberships. The smaller courses did not produce the same return, particularly when commissions were involved.

The insight challenged the assumption that more products automatically meant a stronger business. At that stage, it made more sense to invest in what was already working. With a bigger team and more capacity, the decision might change. A good idea for a future stage is not always the right priority for the current one. A dashboard should not simply tell us what happened. It should help us decide what to do next.

Break Big Goals Into Clear Next Steps

Big goals become overwhelming when we try to solve the entire problem at once. I have seen this while helping coaches turn what they teach into books and frameworks. I once worked with life coach Cha, whose broader goal was helping people reduce overthinking. That is a large problem.

As she explained what she would ask a client to do, we realized one useful starting point was identifying the different kinds of thoughts moving through a person’s mind. We developed a way to categorize them: Fact, Lie, Opinion, Assumption, or Truth. It was not intended to solve every aspect of overthinking. It organized one important part of the problem first.

The same principle helps with project execution. Sometimes the first useful step is not creating a long task list. It is sorting, categorizing, prioritizing, or defining the problem so the next action becomes clearer. Make a big goal small enough to begin without losing sight of where you ultimately want to go.

Review Progress and Adjust

Work smarter not harder also means knowing when to adjust. When a project is not going according to plan, I return to three questions: Why? What? How?

I start with why. Why did we do this in the first place? What larger goal or purpose were we trying to achieve? For me, the why is usually the most stable part. If the goal is still relevant, I do not immediately abandon it because the first approach did not work.

Next, I look at what has already been done and what results it produced. Then I examine the how: Was it implemented correctly? Did we use the right process, platform, channel, or method? I prefer questioning the how before abandoning the what. If changing the method still does not produce the desired result, then it may be time to change the deliverable, scope, or allocation of resources.

Keep the why clear. Evaluate the what. Be willing to change the how. Progress reviews are not simply about whether a project is on schedule; they are opportunities to learn and make better decisions about what should happen next.

Use the SPEED Framework to Move From Idea to Delivery

These lessons come together in a framework I use for execution: SPEED — Strategize, Plan, Execute, Evaluate, Deliver.

Strategize means clarifying the goal and deciding what matters. Plan means translating direction into priorities, requirements, owners, milestones, and next actions. Execute means doing the work while protecting enough focus and capacity to move it forward. Evaluate means reviewing results, asking what is working, and adjusting the how or what when needed. Deliver means completing the output, communicating it clearly, and closing the loop.

The framework is intentionally simple. The value is not in making project management more complicated; it is in giving ideas a path toward completion. The full SPEED method deserves a deeper article of its own.

Focus, Communication, and Execution Work Together

Focus, communication, and execution are not separate productivity tricks. They reinforce one another. Focus protects the attention and energy required for meaningful work. Communication helps people understand what needs to happen. Execution turns that understanding into results.

If focus is strong but communication is weak, a team can work hard in the wrong direction. If communication is strong but execution is weak, the organization may have excellent meetings and documentation but little progress. If execution is fast but priorities are unclear, people can become very efficient at completing work that does not contribute enough to the goal.

To improve productivity at work, we need all three: protect attention, create shared understanding, and move priorities toward completion.

A Simple Work-Smarter Checklist

When work becomes busy, I find it useful to return to a few simple questions.

• FOCUS: What outcome matters most right now? Which activity is most likely to move that outcome forward? What can I batch? What can I delegate, automate, or simplify? Where do I need uninterrupted focus time?
• COMMUNICATION: Does everyone understand the expected output? Is the instruction actionable, clear, and time-based? Does this need a meeting, a written update, or both? Has the important information been acknowledged? Are decisions documented somewhere people can find them later?
• EXECUTION: What is the next meaningful step? Who owns it? What milestone tells us we are making progress? What does the data say is working? If results are weak, should we change the how before changing the what? What does “done” look like?
• CAPACITY: Do we actually have the time, attention, skills, tools, and energy to do this well? If not, what needs to be removed, delayed, delegated, or redesigned?

How to Be More Productive at Work Is About Better Choices, Not Doing More

Early in my career, productivity looked like legwork, more proposals, longer hours, and a willingness to do whatever needed to be done. Those experiences taught me persistence, and I still value hard work. But experience also taught me that effort becomes more valuable when it is directed.

Learning how to work smarter not harder is ultimately about making better choices. Choose what deserves focus. Communicate so people can act without unnecessary guessing and rework. Turn information into decisions. Break large goals into manageable next steps. Review what is happening and adjust without losing sight of the purpose.

The goal is not to squeeze more activity into every available hour. It is to create more meaningful progress from the capacity we already have.

If you want to bring these ideas into your organization through a talk or workshop, visit my Speaking and Training page.

Frequently Asked Questions

References

• American Psychological Association. “Multitasking: Switching Costs.” American Psychological Association.
• Microsoft. “2025 Work Trend Index: The Year the Frontier Firm Is Born.” Microsoft WorkLab, 2025.
• Microsoft. “2023 Work Trend Index: Will AI Fix Work?” Microsoft WorkLab, 2023.