Here is another valuable Management Tip of the Day from Harvard Business Review. To sign up for a free subscription to any/all HBR newsletters, please click here.

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What matters more: the amount of time you work or the results you produce?

Any smart manager would say the latter. Yet, many people spend long, wasted hours at work. If you’re struggling to keep control of your time and boost your performance, try doing these three things.

• Decline meetings. If you don’t need to be there, don’t accept the invitation. Explain your workload and request to see the meeting’s minutes instead.

• Delete emails. Not all of them of course, but only keep and respond to the most important ones.

• Dial down your effort. If you can’t say “no” to a certain request, recognize that it may only require a B+ effort. Don’t spend time bumping it up to an A+ unless you really need to.

Adapted from “Stop Working All Those Hours” by Robert C. Pozen.

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