Once you have explored and have performed a certain task a couple of times, you are ready to optimize.

In this case, you want to eliminate unnecessary actions and bottlenecks. Strip down the activity as much as possible until you get the same/better result with less moves.

The following questions asked regularly will give you the answers and action steps necessary for your optimization:

1. Is this task and outcome important at all?

“There's nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.” //Peter Drucker

If it is not a clear yes on this question, eliminate the activity altogether. Hyperproductivity comes down to focusing on what matters most and eliminating the rest. You will find that almost everything you came up with in exploration mode will be abandoned except for a tiny percentage.

2. How can I get rid of as many steps as possible?

Rather than simplifying each step of the process, you should remove them. In other words, the previous question is once again applied within the activity itself, to further strip down everything but the essential nature.

3. What hinders me from going faster?

The strength of a chain is ultimately determined by its weakest link. In other words, there will be a bottleneck somewhere within the process, causing more stress the faster you want to go. Start by identifying this bottleneck (the part who gets the most stress). Then adjust everything else to it to prevent breakdown. After this, you can figure out how you can strengthen the weakest link.

An example: imagine a road with six lanes but in the middle it converges to only two and then back to six. Filling the first six lanes with cars will cause major traffic jams since only two lanes can pass through this bottleneck. The solution is to restrict overall traffic to only two lanes, regardless of the capacity of the other parts. When the stress is down, you can work on opening up the two lanes to six, although it takes time.

Find your narrow passage and you will be faster automatically, with less friction