How to Improve Your Workflow in 6 Steps (Save 15+ Hours)

Ever look up at 6 PM wondering where your day went? 

You’re not alone — most professionals spend 51% of their workday on low-value tasks. That’s over 20 hours a week lost to distractions, busywork, and unnecessary meetings.

After helping 50,000+ professionals and entrepreneurs, we’ve seen what actually works to reclaim time and scale your impact — without burning out.

And in this guide, you’ll learn the exact systems we teach our clients to:

• Cut your task time in half
• Eliminate 15+ hours of busywork weekly
• Build workflows that last — even under pressure

Ready to learn how to improve your workflow? Read on!

Who are we? We’re Demir and Carey Bentley, founders of Lifehack Method and authors of the WSJ bestseller Winning the Week. After burning out in high-pressure careers, we reinvented our lives and created a system that’s helped 50,000+ professionals at companies like Google, Uber, and PepsiCo work less and achieve more. Today, we teach others how to reclaim their time, boost productivity, and avoid burnout.

 

Key takeaways: 

• Most professionals waste over 20 hours a week on low-value tasks — but a simple workflow audit can help you reclaim that time fast.
• Strategic automation (paired with tools like Asana and ChatGPT) can cut task time in half and eliminate 15+ hours of busywork weekly.
• Our “Winning the Week” planning method and weekly workflow review is the secret behind high-performers who scale without burning out.

How to improve your workflow in 6 simple steps: 

1. Audit your workflow
2. Prioritize goals and tasks
3. Communicate clearly
4. Train your team
5. Automate tasks
6. Review your workflows

Let’s start from the beginning…

Why is an efficient workflow important? 

When you waste 20+ hours weekly on low-leverage work, like most people, you’re losing time…AND sacrificing impact, income, and wellbeing.

But when you implement a strategic workflow, you work less and can reinvest those hours where they matter most:

• Executing on high-leverage projects that move your career or business forward
• Creating systems that scale your impact without scaling your hours
• Developing your team so they can handle more without your constant input
• Pursuing passion projects that fulfill you professionally and personally
• Being fully present with family instead of mentally stuck at work
• Finally prioritizing your health and wellbeing

Ready to transform your approach? Here’s exactly how to improve workflow efficiency.

6 proven ways to improve your workflow

Workflow automation can save you 18 hours every week. I’ve seen it firsthand. Not only did I myself go from 80-hour weeks to now building my own business in 20 hours every week, but my clients have made some pretty significant improvements too. 

Just ask Mike, who spent three decades as a Wall Street investor before optimizing his workflow with our system. He grew his new consulting business to seven figures in a matter of weeks – while working fewer hours than ever.

Or Corina, a software company director and mother of three, who went from drowning in anxiety and busywork to enjoying unprecedented productivity and presence with her family:

But what strategies can you use to improve your workflow? Here are the best workflow management tips!

1. Run a strategic workflow audit

Most people try to improve their workflow without understanding what’s actually broken. That’s like trying to fix your car engine without popping the hood.

You need to locate your specific bottlenecks before you can eliminate them. Here’s exactly how:

Step 1: Document your current process from initiation to completion. Who’s involved? What are the handoffs? Where does work typically stall?

Step 2: Map your workflow visually using a simple flowchart or Kanban board.

Step 3: Identify the critical bottlenecks – look for where projects consistently get stuck or tasks that take 3x longer than they should.

Step 4: Choose the 1-2 biggest bottlenecks to fix first. Don’t try to overhaul everything at once.

CRITICAL: If you work with a team, include them in this process. The people doing the work often see inefficiencies invisible to leadership.

Once you understand what’s draining your time, you can move to the next step – prioritizing what actually matters.

2. Prioritize goals and tasks

Here’s a truth that transformed my own life: If everything is important, nothing is.

The most successful professionals I’ve worked with don’t just manage their time better – they make fundamentally different choices about what deserves their attention.

Start by applying these three methods:

Use SMART goals to focus

Your goals must be:

• Specific: Define exactly what you want to accomplish
• Measurable: Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress
• Achievable: Challenging enough to motivate but realistic enough to achieve
• Relevant: Aligned with your broader objectives
• Time-bound: Set with a clear deadline to create urgency

For example, instead of “improve customer service,” a S.M.A.R.T. goal would be “reduce customer response time from 24 hours to 5 hours by implementing a new ticketing system by June 30th.”

Plan your week

The secret weapon I use personally (and with all our clients) is our Winning the Week method.

Here’s how it works:

1. Schedule 30 minutes every week for reflection and planning
2. Review what you accomplished and learned in the previous week
3. Identify your single most leveraged priority for the coming week
4. Schedule everything – not just work, but rest, meals, exercise, and personal commitments

Want the exact template we use? Get our FREE Winning the Week worksheet here

Use Task Triage to eliminate busywork

For every task on your list, ask:

• Is it related to your #1 leveraged weekly priority? If yes, keep it.
• Is it incredibly time-sensitive? If yes, keep it but see what you can sacrifice to make room.
• Can the task be TACO’d? These are tasks that can be:
  • Terminated (eliminated completely)
  • Automated (done by technology)
  • Consolidated (combined with other tasks)
  • Outsourced (delegated to someone else)
• Is it a “someday” task? Move it to a separate list.
• Does it need more clarity to be actionable? Seek additional information.

Apply the Eisenhower Matrix

Another way to prioritize your tasks is with the Eisenhower Matrix. 

Basically, you split your to-do list into four quadrants as follows: 

• Do First: For tasks that are both urgent and important. These need to be addressed right away. 
• Schedule: For tasks that are important but not so urgent. You can work on these later. 
• Delegate: For tasks that are urgent but less important. You can assign them to others. 
• Delete: For tasks that aren’t urgent or important. You can remove these. 

Ta-da! This simple action will help you eliminate distractions and regain focus.

PS. If you’re serious about managing your time right, take a look at these expert-approved productivity courses.

Learn more about how to prioritize goals in this video I made:

3. Establish clear communication protocols

Communication breakdowns silently kill productivity faster than almost anything else. In fact, they cost companies with just 100 employees an average of $420,000 annually.

Whether you work with a team or alone, you need communication systems that eliminate confusion and preserve focus:

Create a communication charter

Specify: 

• Which channels to use for which types of communication (chat, email, WhatsApp…)
• Expected response times for each channel
• When to escalate from asynchronous to synchronous communication

Implement “meeting minimalism”

• Default to no meetings (yes, really)
• When necessary, require an agenda, time limit, and clear decision-making authority
• End every meeting with specific action items assigned to owners

Practice radical clarity

In all communications: 

• Begin with the conclusion (don’t bury the lede)
• Specify exactly what you need and by when
• Indicate the priority level clearly

These simple protocols can reclaim hours of your week previously lost to miscommunications and endless clarification loops.

And to help your team communicate better, read on…

4. Create “turnkey” training systems

Most workflows break down during knowledge transfer. The solution is creating systems so clear that anyone could step in and execute them.

Here’s our proven approach:

Document before delegating

Never delegate a task you haven’t personally performed and documented.

Create comprehensive SOPs that include:

• Step-by-step written instructions
• Screen recording demonstrations
• Common roadblocks and solutions
• Decision trees for unusual scenarios

Use the “Teach Back” method:

• Have team members explain the process back to you
• Let them create their own version of the documentation
• Have them teach another team member while you observe

This approach takes more time upfront but saves countless hours of rework, questions, and quality issues later.

Want to create SOPs that actually get used? Watch this quick tutorial:

5. Use strategic automation

Automation isn’t about implementing cool tech—it’s about eliminating repetitive cognitive load.

We’ve helped clients eliminate up to 15 hours of weekly busywork through strategic automation alone. Here’s how:

Task management automation

We’ve used Asana to facilitate a ZERO-meeting and ZERO-email workflow for over five years. Yes, it’s possible!

Here’s how we use it:

• Task management: All tasks, including personal and professional, are captured in one place
• Project planning: Breaking complex work into actionable steps
• Weekly planning: Aligning tasks with the “Winning the Week” method
• Time blocking: Calendarizing specific tasks to ensure commitment

Learn our exact Asana workflow in this video:

AI 

AI tools like ChatGPT can transform your productivity when used strategically. Here are just a few ways we use them to automate parts of our workflows: 

• ChatGPT for task management: We use ChatGPT to break down complex projects into manageable tasks. Example: “Turn this vague task into a 3-step process I can calendarize.”
• Email efficiency: AI assists us in sorting, prioritizing, and drafting email responses. 
• Calendar and time blocking support: We use AI to convert a list of tasks into a calendarized week.

By connecting AI to different tools, you can create powerful automated workflows that eliminate hours of manual work each week: 

• Transferring completed ChatGPT plans into Asana
• Syncing AI-generated tasks to calendars or project management tools
• Using Zapier to trigger follow-up tasks or reminders (for example, if a task is marked “urgent” by AI, it’s automatically calendarized)

6. Monitor and improve your workflows

Even the best workflows degrade without regular maintenance. Implement this non-negotiable weekly review:

1. Reflect on wins

• What were your biggest accomplishments?
• What enabled those successes?

2. Review your most important tasks

• Did you complete your priorities?
• If not, diagnose why: time, clarity, distractions, or overcommitment?

3. Evaluate what didn’t work

• What tasks remained undone?
• What unexpected challenges arose?
• Where did your system break down?

4. Update your task system (like Asana)

• Mark completed items
• Reassess unfinished tasks
• Eliminate low-value busywork

5. Review your calendar

• Where did your time actually go?
• Did you stick to your time blocks?
• What interruptions occurred?

6. Make adjustments for next week

• Refine your planning approach
• Choose a better priority task
• Add buffer time if needed

7. Check your mindset

• How are you feeling—energized, drained, neutral?
• What do you need more of next week: focus, rest, support?

The tools we use for this weekly review are: 

• Asana: Review, tag, and organize tasks
• Calendar (Google/Outlook): Compare plan versus reality
• Journal or Google Doc: Reflections to process lessons

The most successful professionals we work with treat this weekly review as sacred—it’s the difference between workflows that fail after a month and those that improve consistently for years.

Are you making these mistakes? 

After working with thousands of professionals, we’ve identified these top workflow destroyers:

• Budget: If you’re not tracking expenses daily, you’ll face cash flow problems and flawed planning. Use all-in-one budgeting software like Scoro or Banktrack to maintain visibility.
• Distractions: The average professional gets interrupted 60 times a day. Implement focus blocks with all notifications disabled. Here are our top 10 tactics for eliminating distractions.
• Work-life balance: Overworking leads to decreased quality, missed deadlines, and eventual collapse. Build recovery periods into your workflow design.

How to improve your workflow right now!

You now know how to improve your workflow using the exact workflow optimization tips we’ve used with 50,000+ professionals.

But knowledge without implementation changes nothing.

Start with just one system — even something as simple as a weekly planning ritual. The momentum you’ll gain from that single change will create a foundation for bigger transformations.

Ready for the exact tools we give our private clients? Grab our FREE “Winning the Week” PDF:

Read more:

• How to Enroll Your Boss in Changes to Your Workflow
• How CEOs and Executives Manage Their Time
• How to Do a Time Audit