Quit Repeating Yourself!

You’ll often hear productivity experts (this author included) preach the need to “work smarter, not harder.” But what does that mean, in practical terms?

Computer programmers have an answer with a concept they use to write more efficient code: Don't Repeat Yourself (DRY).  In software engineering, DRY is the principle of reducing repetition in the code, referring to a single source—or "snippet"—of reusable code whenever you need it.

While the Don’t Repeat Yourself technique (or DRY Principle) was made famous by coders, it is easily applicable to non-programmers alike.

Essentially, DRY is about saving time by reusing and recycling work you’ve already done and material that you’ve already prepared so that you don’t have to continually repeat the same work time and again.

Many of the things that we do and do often – such as replying to emails, crafting correspondences, writing articles, briefs, or proposals – take up chunks of our day when they really shouldn’t. Repetition is by its very nature inefficient and pointless. DRY encourages you to create workflows and templates to minimize it.

So, if you want to make more time for yourself each day, start to recycle your work and automate your processes.

One common example is email templates. Instead of typing essentially the same email time and again, create a basic template for it, and tweak it as necessary.

This concept also applies to such things as invoices, reports, and documents. This strategy can also be extended to rooting out low-value, repetitive tasks – there are apps that completely automate daily admin, including meeting scheduling, protecting our think time (“do not disturb,”) time tracking, and more.

These will free up more time and headspace for complex, important tasks.

How can we do this? That’ll be the focus of a future post.

Naphtali Hoff, PsyD, is an executive coach who helps busy leaders be more productive so that they can scale profits with less stress and get home at a decent hour. Register for his free productivity webinar. Take his free productivity assessment. Download his free productivity blueprint.