Smart work is hard!
When you work harder, you get smarter!
“Work smarter, not harder” has to be the most misleading advice going around. It make no sense and is conveniently interpreted to justify taking shortcuts and avoiding the “hard work”. This has caused massive damage to organizations - in the form of lost productivity - and individuals - in the form of poor mindset.
Hard work is an essential component of success. There is no getting away from that. But we need to clearly understand what is hard work. Rather, let’s look at what is not hard work:
You toil away for hours doing random tasks and activities, without understanding why you are doing them.
You don’t pause to reflect on what you did, what you learned, and how you can improve.
You don’t ask for feedback from your peers and managers on what you do well, and what you should do more of, so you can get to the next level.
You don’t think of ways to make life better for your customers/stakeholders.
And so on. You get the drift. If you don’t apply your mind to the work you are doing, it is not hard work, regardless of how hard you are working on it! And that’s why the advice to work smart and not hard doesn’t make sense. Because applying your mind to work is hard!
And for that to happen, you have to be fully engaged - physically, mentally, emotionally - in the work you are doing. You will then automatically think of better ways to achieve the outcomes. How can you not! Coming up with creative and innovative ways to get the work done is the true meaning - and a natural outcome - of “hard work”.