Do More with Less: Three Strategies to Accomplish More at Work

I was putting up some fencing around our horse pasture. Like most men, when I get involved in a project, a trip to the home improvement store becomes necessary. And I have to look around and make sure there’s nothing else I need, especially if power tools are involved.

Well, I bought what I thought I needed to do the fence. When I returned, I discovered that I already had the parts I needed from a previous project. I learned that if you do an inventory, you discover what you need and what you already have.

You do more with less.

You achieve more with less when you discover what your business needs and what you already have. Let’s inventory three aspects:

Attention
What gets most of your attention—the positive strengths of your business?

Or, the negative weaknesses?

Sure, we have to shore up the weak links in our chain of business operations from time to time. Do it quickly and efficiently whether it’s a personnel issue or software upgrade.

When you consistently focus on the negative, you find more problems to be solved. This use of your attention is counterproductive to your business’ growth.

Focus your attention instead on the positive strengths of your business.

One way to do this is to give yourself 10 minutes of positive thoughts each morning. Go over your calendar or list of tasks and spend 10 minutes visualizing positive outcomes. This focus on the best, positive possibilities for your work sets your attention compass on the due north of success. The rest of you follows.

Intention
What is it about your business that emotionally engages you? Why do you do this business instead of another one?

All business professionals have competing intentions. The real challenge for us to align our intentions with our attention. The positive strengths of your business are your priority attention. You couple those strengths with what you enjoy most about your business, or, as so many people talk about today, with what you’re passionate about.

You pair up your positive thoughts and people—strengths of your business—with your emotional engagement—your intentions—and create a vibrant, Work Positive business that spins off profits when you…
Action
…act on what you’ve paid attention to and given your intentions.

The question here is, “What do you do?”

How many business professionals do you know who, when you ask, “How’s business?” say something like, “All I do is solve personnel problems.”

What are they paying attention to? The weaknesses. So their actions reflect it.

How many more professionals tell you, “All I do is put out fires?”

Where are their intentions? Divorced from what they wish were their actions.

Such intentions pave the road to nowhere.

Action follows Attention and Intention.

Look at your to-do list and ask yourself, “Do these activities reflect my focus on positive strengths and people and what I get excited about in this business?”

Delegate or delete the ones that don’t.

Move the ones that do to the top of your list.

Then go do them.

That’s how you do more with less.