By Neal Glatt

When I approach any job, my first question towards working as smart as possible is, “What are the key strengths required for success in this task?”  The reason for this question is that I believe I only do about five things extremely well, and working smart requires me to match my top talents towards the necessary requirements for any task.  More often than not, we’re frustrated, underperforming, and depleted by not working smart enough.  Here’s a better solution than attacking everything hands on….

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When we work smart (that is, in our strengths zone), we have more energy, more excitement, more creativity, and more enjoyment.  It’s when our best work is done and we enter a type of “flow state” where things seem easy and time flies.  It’s our best work, but only about 1 in 5 people say they get to do their best work everyday.

Working smarter means approaching tasks from a position of my innate talents, and critically, knowing when to partner up with someone else who can do it better.  Because we only can do a few things really excellently as individuals, a team approach always has a higher level of potential than a group of individual contributors.

Most managers today are spending too much time working and not enough time cultivating this team effort.  But the best in a given role work as smart as possible by focusing on identifying and cultivating talent in others while providing training and support for the knowledge and skills required to tackle every task.

If your world is feeling too hectic - you’re frustrated about how much is on your to-do list, you’re worried about how work is affecting your physical and social well-being, or you’re disappointed that you can’t seem to make time for everything you want in life - maybe it’s time to consider how you can work smarter instead of working harder this Fall.