This can make a substantial difference, but isn't always practical. In short, increasingly the amount of time you have available to spend on something allows you to do more of it.

You can typically achieve this by working longer hours or reducing low-value or time-wasting activities. Something most people can do is to reduce the amount of time they spend on app games or social media scrolling, whereas quitting your job to work dedicatedly on a project isn't often possible.

Adding resources is usually referring to physical equipment like a faster laptop or digital tools like apps, as well as human resources in the form of either additional staff or outsourcing.

Resources cost money. They also consume time. Humans (internal or outsourced) have to be trained, supervised and their work needs to be reviewed. New physical or digital tools need to be assessed, purchased and learned.

In terms of purely optimising output (ignoring money), add resources when the net result is a time saving. Outsourcing, for example, can take as much work as DIY when you factor in preparing a brief, evaluating suppliers, review cycles and admin such as contracts/invoicing.

 This area of output optimisation is the most complex. There are scores of ways to increase your efficiency, but to sum up the key areas, we have:

Time management is a series of techniques that, when used in combination, can double many people's output. Removing distractions, productivity tools, a "work mode" mindset and reducing context shifting are all examples.

Sometimes the spirit is willing but the flesh is spongy and bruised. In that case, an individual may need to work on their stamina. Like with physical health, mental stamina can be increased through training, diet and exercise, proper rest and all those good things.

Systems and processes or automation is where the greatest gains can be made. A staggering number of tasks can be done more quickly with better tools or skills, or can be automated entirely. If you spend most of your work time on a computer, investing the effort in learning keyboard shortcuts alone can significantly increase the speed in which you do everything.

Thing about the accumulation of small gains. If you can save six seconds on a task you do ten times a day, that's a minute gained. While that's not much, imagine if you can find 100 little improvements like this. You could save an entire day per week.

Finally, being motivated and caring about what you're doing can have an enormous impact on your output. People who don't enjoy their work tend not to do it quickly. While this can be a tough area to gain efficiency in, it's not impossible, and following the right techniques can get better performance out of a less motivated team member. Hot tip: good management can make a big difference to mood and motivation.