You Have Got to Work Smart Not Hard to Succeed

You have probably heard this a hundred times, “you have got to work smart not hard to succeed”. There is a lot of confusion on the internet about Smart work and Hard work, what we don’t realise is, both entail the word “WORK” which is of paramount importance and has no substitute. Work is an important step on the ladder of success, but successfully completing work with least cost or efforts is what is called a smart work.

How do you define working smart though? Would working smart mean less work and not working hard to be smart? If we work hard does that have nothing to do with working smart? Do smart people not work hard? Confusing, right! Let’s take a deeper look.

The problem with the working hard vs. working smart dichotomy is that all too often we frame the choice as one in which we can only choose “hard” or “smart.” The question we should be asking is, why aren’t we doing both? Hard work and smart work go hand in hand.

There is no denying that people need to work hard to create a foundation for great achievements. However, if students work smart, they can do the same amount of work faster and efficiently. Step 2: Specify, specify, specify Making broad goals like how you want to be rich and have a gorgeous partner is not what’s going to get you from point A to B. It’s like telling a taxi driver at the airport, “I want to go to New York”.

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“Okay, New York what? State? City? What’s the street name? Zip Code?”.

Think of your goals as your directions, like longitude and latitude, and think of your mind as your GPS. Your mind, and possibly someone else (if you believe a higher power is guiding you), will only be able to guide you toward your goals if you specify! avoid procrastination. Avoiding procrastination seems very difficult when you’re in the throes of procrastination; however, it’s not very hard to avoid procrastinating if you start out your projects in the right state of mind. most people procrastination out of an emotional need for something. For instance, many people that procrastinate on their dreams out of a fear of failure because if I never try, then I never have to say I failed-I can always say, “I could have done it if I tried.” So, to avoid procrastination of this kind, you need to get over the fact that you might fail-or better yet, to notice that this type of procrastination, rather than helping you to avoid failure, actually is the cause of your failure.

Prepare the Night Before Planning ahead makes life go more smoothly under any circumstance. The unexpected will happen but it is better if a plan is in place, one that can be put in place if the unexpected occur and that is a good reason to plan the night before you face a new day. you can prepare for a productive tomorrow by planning a head to increase your productivity, by keeping a list and reviewing and focusing on what’s vital and urgent, most importantly avoiding daily distraction that you’ll be facing. This goes out to all the people who wouldn’t describe themselves as “a morning person.” When you wake up, the last thing you want to do is make big decisions about your workload and your schedule before your first cup of coffee has kicked in. Taking even 10 or 15 minutes to decide what you’ll be doing the following day can make a huge difference in your workflow.

Don’t Start From Scratch. “Don’t continue to re-invent the wheel… starting from scratch each time is a big time waster,” says Novak. Instead, she recommends finding and modifying templates you’ve utilized in the past or finding someone who has already done what you need to do and take a cue from them on how to proceed. This allows you to leverage other people or other resources to reach your goal as efficiently and effectively as possible. Prioritize your focus. There’s never enough time to do everything. You don’t have time to put everything neatly away, there’s not enough time to stay up on all the topics of interest, not enough time to read all the email and blogs coming in. Manage information based upon what’s important – which is defined by the first step. Identify and live with intentionality. You should never have more than two mission-critical items to complete each day.

Never. This will force you to limit based upon your priorities. And if you’re thinking you don’t have enough time, re-frame that thought as an indicator of a lack of defined or applied priorities. But we think you’ll do better if you consider adding two more to your list, based on our research: Give up getting it all done! You’ll never get all the 80% stuff done each day, so give up the goal of getting everything finished. It actually pulls you in the direction of non-priority stuff. Pay Attention to what creates the most value. Most of us are far too fuzzy in identifying what creates the most value, what gets us closest to the objective. Without having that clear… you’re really not ready to face, much less seize, the day.

Work on your mental strength Working smart will be easy if you have a vision, clear goals, and passion for what you do. It entails working with focus on a worthwhile goal. Even sportsmen who ply their trade with physical strength combine it with mental tactics. It is not about being physically strong but rather being a mental giant. You will hardly see the CEOs of big organisations with a macho man, muscular physique. So it is not physical strength that took them there but rather their mental strength. You don’t only work smart to be successful but also to sustain the success. Nobody has known good success without a good brain. That is why you must work at developing your mental ability.

Ability to think fast, come up with great ideas, utilize the ideas and manage the resultant success. It is smart works that have seen people like Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz (both of Facebook.com) and Jack Dorsey (twitter.com) become great successes at pretty young ages. 4 – have an action plan Greatness is derived from a synergism between a strong work ethic and an ability and willingness to work smartly. Merely knowing what needs to be done, and not working on it, never gets it done. Conversely, working hard but without the correct direction is nearly never meaningful either. Working smart means committing to effective listening, and from that developing plans, and an agenda to implement a realistic, yet needed action plan. Working smart means setting priorities, becoming a superior time manager, understanding human nature, and never procrastinating. Nothing gets done if you never begin!

Beware perfectionism Perfectionism is a risk factor for obsessive compulsive disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, eating disorders, social anxiety, social phobia, Even though perfectionists are often high-achievers, they are also at risk for eating disorders, sexual dysfunction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, divorce, and suicide. They lead a life of continual anxiety and fear of failure. … They become extremely angry with themselves and depressed.” Studies show that it requires 50% more effort to squeeze out an additional 10% improvement in quality. Learn to recognize the point at which “Good enough is good enough.” Then stop. ) Stick To the Blueprint of Your Organized Plan It’s a fact. Clutter and disorganization causes stress. In our world today, there are stresses we can not escape…..job, kids, bills, taxes and the list goes on.

So why not DO something about the stress we CAN eliminate? When you first got organized you implemented a plan that would help you to achieve your goal. Now it is necessary to reference that to stay there. Whether things are labeled, simply have their own place, or there is a cohesive efficient design implemented, stick to the plan. It was put in place to get you organized and had served as a great companion in getting you there. Conclusion If you can incorporate working hard and smart together, you will achieve great heights and lead yourself to a better life. One who works hard and smart will in due course of time procure all the benefits and rake in the golden opportunity to probably not work at all, Working smart and hard can be stressful at times. Take a break whenever you feel tired or exhausted. Socialize and relax with your friends in the evenings. This will give you the necessary boost and enthusiasm to start another day’s work.