Want to work smart? Learn from these business leaders

Mark Zuckerberg prefers wearing identical grey t-shirts and hoodies through his work week to stay focused and to spend as little energy as possible figuring out what to wear every day

Everybody has seven days a week and 24 hours each day and so much work to do. If you thought getting through your work week was bad, imagine how it must be for CEOs, business heads and presidents. Is there a personal task management system that they follow?

Not only do they have a lot to do, there are people, even entire nations, depending on them. Considering the amount of responsibilities they have, many of them get by with 3-4 hours of sleep a day. Hold on; nobody says you have to work as hard. But perhaps you could pick up a few tricks and learn to work smart. Here’s how some of the top industry leaders have learned to be productive:

Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook and co-founder & CEO of Asana, prefers ‘No meetings Wednesdays’.

Matt DeCelles, co-founder and partner of William Painter, suggests writing the three most important tasks on a Post-it note and keeping that readily in sight.

Mark Zuckerberg prefers wearing identical grey T-shirts and hoodies throughout his work week to stay focussed and to spend as little energy as possible figuring out what to wear every day.

Alok Bhardwaj, the founder of Hidden Reflex, starts his day by doing the least desirable task first.

Bharath Kumar, a co-founder at Pugmarks.me, suggests working on Sunday night to get some extremely productive, thoughtful and non-interrupted time.

JK Rowling’s personal productivity system means eliminating all those things that can sidetrack her so that she can focus on what really matters.

Paula Rizzo, founder of listproducer.com, suggests not answering the phone unless you are expecting the call.

Greg Archbald, founder of GreaseBook, suggests identifying one thing that would make your day a success.

“Schedule fun activities outside work to motivate you to finish on time,” suggests Tim Halberg, founder of Tim Halberg Photography.

Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, and John F Kennedy believed in the power of taking naps during the day to recharge their body and mind.

Richard Branson believes in taking care of the body through regular exercise to be more productive.

Donald Trump believes that some of the best time management techniques include getting up early to think and read.

Arianna Huffington has said, “My single most effective trick for getting things done is to stop doing what I’m doing and getting some sleep.”

Great leaders like Nelson Mandela often employed the method of “walking while working” to get more things done.

David Pogue, the famous New York Times columnist, uses typing-expansion software and dictation applications to speed up his creative process.

This is how industry leaders do it.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.