Success Advice

Why Working Faster Matters Even When You Make Mistakes

Published

3 years ago

Jul 5, 2020

Image Credit: Unsplash

Too many people work slowly because they fear making mistakes, but the cliché saying is true: time is money. Jeff Bezos recently argued that being wrong can hurt you, but being slow will kill you. Evolutionary biology tells us the same. It was, after all, the meek, but speedy, rodents from 160 million years ago that ended up inheriting the earth as humans today.

Speeding up your workflow doesn’t require you to sacrifice quality. Sloppiness and mistakes are more often the result of fatigue. Working faster can actually boost your productivity and accuracy, as long as you take strategic breaks between those bursts of adrenaline.

Keeping a quick pace throughout your workday will help you move through more tasks, identify opportunities for efficiency, and actually save you time in the long run by helping you focus on those actions that actually produce results.

Here are a few techniques for how to work faster to save time and minimize your mistakes without tiring out:

1. Work With Goals: To-Do Lists are your Friend

Is there any greater satisfaction than crossing an item off a to-do list? Completing a task stimulates a psychological reward process in the brain that results in a rush of dopamine, the neurotransmitters directly connected to pleasure and motivation.

If you don’t set daily goals, your brain chemistry doesn’t get to experience the rush of motivational feelings nearly as often, resulting in burnout. However, when you create a checklist of tasks and complete them, those feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment come regularly throughout your work day.

So much of productivity is setting up the right circumstances to thrive. So don’t make the checklist on your phone, as it’s too easy to get a popup notification and derail your focus entirely. Also, your list doesn’t need to include everything you need to do this month, just the most important tasks you need to get accomplished today.

A checklist is a simple way to set a roadmap, so that once you’re up and running, you don’t have to slow down to regain your bearings. Also, it sets the right circumstances for those reward signals to keep on coming, keeping your brain stimulated, energized, and moving forward.

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.” – Albert Einstein

2. Work in Sprints: Try The Pomodoro Technique

Working at full-speed and in top-form for the entirety of an 8-10 hour work day is impossible for anyone. The Pomodoro Technique is all about breaking your workday into smaller, more manageable increments, so you can keep up a fast pace for the entire day.

The famous productivity hack suggests breaking your work intervals into 25-35 minutes. By continually restarting the “pomodoro,” (which references the shape of the kitchen timer the inventor of this technique initially used), you train your brain to stay hyper-focused during those shorter periods of work, resulting in more stamina and productivity over the course of a day.

The Pomodoro Technique encourages short breaks between each interval, and then a longer, 20-30 minute break after 4 work sessions. Like a daily checklist, this productivity technique transforms the cycle of work into a process of staggered rewards. Each completed increment brings its own sense of accomplishment (and dopamine!).

Although, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint,” is often referenced when it comes to accomplishing long-term projects, interval training is the better workout metaphor for an efficient daily work flow. High-intensity interval training is considered the most efficient form of cardio because it helps you burn more calories in less time.

Similarly, these bursts of hyper-focused work increments produce more results because of the intensity. The scattered breaks (or periods of low intensity) allow you to rejuvenate and refocus before the next round.

3. Work Smarter: Remember the 80/20 Rule

It’s important to remember that productivity doesn’t have a direct correlation to input. Yes, your coworker may be putting in ten-hour work days — but how much of that extra time is translating into real results?

The 80/20 rule — or the Pareto Principle — has historic roots dating back to the mid-19th century, and the basic tenant is that 80% of results are brought about by only 20% of your efforts. So although a 10-hour work day may appear successful if measured in input rather than output, it’s likely the most tangible results only came from 20% of that time.

The Pareto Principle is not an exact science, but a kind of inevitability. Some of our efforts won’t always be fruitful. Those people who fear working too quickly for the fear of slipping up don’t seem to realize that mistakes are inevitable, and most of them can be corrected and repaired. Plus, mistakes give you the hindsight to get it right the next time.

When you apply the 80/20 rule to your own work day, it gives you a tangible way to measure which of your actions result in the most production. A daily checklist, or a productivity schedule like the Pomodoro Technique, can help you pay attention to the 80/20 rule more closely. What items on your checklist took more effort? Which pomodoros produced the best results?

When you start to identify these patterns of input and output, you can redelegate and refocus your priorities toward that 20% that actually produces high-quality work. Then, replicate those circumstances whenever you can rather than slowing down.

“No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.” – Tony Robbins

4. Work for Momentum: Break the Rules When Necessary

Some hesitate to adopt an incremental schedule from fear of bringing those moments of heightened productivity to an abrupt stop. Whether you’re “on a roll,” or “in the zone,” momentum is a real state of being, and you need the time and space for your productivity to naturally build and recede.

People tend to build momentum at similar times of day. I’m a morning person, and do better waking up at 6am and working till noon. So much of productivity is getting to know your own tendencies, so you don’t always have to rely on tricks like the Pomodoro Technique or the 80/20 rule to find your flow.

Break the rules when you have to. When you understand when, where, and how you work best, you learn which circumstances lead to mistakes or lower-quality work, and you can avoid them. And on those days when the struggle is real, productivity hacks can keep you on schedule and help you avoid procrastination. Tell yourself you’re going to work on a task for just 5 minutes, or you’re going to write just one paragraph, or you’re going to get just one item off your checklist done.

These little steps usually are enough to get some traction until your productivity takes off. And remember that in order to stay alive, you just have to make sure you don’t slow down.

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Manick Bhan

Manick Bhan is the founder and CTO of LinkGraph, an award-winning digital marketing and SEO agency that provides SEO and paid media services. He is also the founder and CEO of SearchAtlas, which offers a full SEO software suite. He is the former CEO of the ticket reselling app Rukkus.

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Success Advice

How to Ignite the Spark Within for Future Success

All of us come to this world with our own reserve of magic unfortunately, not everyone can unleash it

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4 hours ago

Dec 4, 2023

M.S. Rao

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How Your Beliefs Can Supercharge or Sabotage Your Success

Your life is dictated by beliefs and biases that drive your thinking, behaviors, and decisions

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Nov 20, 2023

Jane Frankel

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Success Advice

How to Break the Cycles of Mediocrity and Manifest Your Greatness

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity

Published

3 weeks ago

Nov 16, 2023

Jamelle Sanders

Image Credit: Midjourney

In just a few weeks, we will be wrapping up 2023. Can you believe it? This year has been absolutely incredible for me.

I have seen amazing doors opened, new relationships formed and I am seeing dreams realized in my life. While this seems like the hallmarks of a great year, this has also been the most challenging year of my life. With all of the change happening in my life, I have been forced out of my comfort zone and challenged to grow in every area of my life.

I can truly say that I have made the most of my moments this year and I have used everything as a catalyst for maximizing my greatest potential.

As a revolutionary leader, I have the pleasure of consulting and advising leaders around the world to fulfill purpose, realize their greatest potential and make an impact.

I want to share some insights with you that will help you to break cycles of mediocrity and manifest your greatness.

Everything legal must come through the matrix

I am sure that some of you are wondering why I am using the term matrix. However, what you have to understand is that I am trying to make a highly complex spiritual principle practical to understand.

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs, every life has an origin and I believe that origin is divine and begins with eternity. You are birthed from eternity and into time to fulfill a unique purpose and assignment in your lifetime and generation.

The matrix is simply the portal or vehicle that brings something out of the invisible realm and into tangible form. The problem with much of the teaching today is that it excludes the matrix. We are told to believe that success is instantaneous and overnight.

Nobody talks about how a dream progresses through stages beginning with visualization and ultimately culminating in manifestation. Without a matrix or portal then everything that you attempt to birth and build will be illegal.

The matrix not only makes you legal but it gives you the authority and power to function as the greatest expression of who you were created to be.

Every matrix has an incubation process

While many people admire and respect me today, I remember a time when nobody knew who I was or the significance of my message. How did I get to where I am today? I got here through an incubation process.

In other words, everything that has been destined for your life is incubating and awaiting a set time of manifestation. The problem is that most people live their entire lives idle and never initiate the incubation process.

What do I meany by that? Most people are living reckless and very few people are living intentionally. I am amazed at the number of people I have conversations with that have no vision, goals or strategies for their lives. They show great promise and they have undeniable potential.

However, without development they will die with their dreams still in them.

Everything that has been destined for your life must be incubated and converted to become realities born to time.

“Visualize this thing that you want, see it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental blueprint and begin to build.” – Robert Collier

You must give expression to that which is not yet born to time

When you think about a matrix or a prophetic incubation process, you have to understand that potential is often unrealized and untapped. In other words, your potential is in raw form and your potential cannot serve you as long as it is untapped.

The thing that makes me valuable is that I have the ability to convert potential into power. I have done it in my own life and I have empowered leaders around the world to do the same. How do you convert potential into power?

First, it is important to note that you have to perceive potential. If you cannot perceive your potential then you can never cultivate your potential. In addition, you must take the time to cultivate your potential. We often get excited about our capabilities; however, we never expand our capacity in order to realize our greatest potential.

In other words, the strength of your potential is only discovered through your willingness to stretch. The more we are challenged the more we are empowered to expand our capacity for greatness. Most of all, you must begin to express your potential. The expression of potential is different for every person.

For example, the expression of my potential is best demonstrated through the thoughts, ideas, products, services, books, etc.

For another person the expression of potential may look like a screenplay, artwork, sports, scientific discoveries, medical breakthroughs, etc.

Regardless of the form of expression, I know that you will live empty and unfulfilled until you make the decision to express your potential. The expression of your potential gives voice to your dreams, life to your vision, significance to your moments and activates your true power.

You must manifest your greatness

As a revolutionary thinker and leader, my work has impacted people around the world. I am grateful that my life is a source of empowerment to so many people. However, before anyone could ever benefit from my life, I had to make a non-negotiable decision to become who I was born to be.

I wish I could tell you that this journey is easy and that you will get there overnight. However, in a world that celebrates us for doing we are often criticized for being. As a result, I wasted a lot of time trying to be who other people wanted me to be instead of being who I was born to be.

There is no greatness without becoming and there is no becoming with authenticity. It is through our bravery to be vulnerable that we ultimately manifest our greatness. We do not bless the world by being a duplicate. We bless the world when we honor our difference. When you honor your difference you honor your potential.

Ultimately, your difference is how you manifest your greatness.

When you present anything but your authentic self to the world, you are playing small and you are robbing the world of your significance. Manifesting your greatness requires you to master your gifts.