Work smart not hard?
I received this picture in an email today entitled smart and I must say after reflecting on it a bit I am truly inspired. The sentiment I took from it was “Don’t work hard … work smart”.
My initial reaction was great point it is important to work smart. The person in the picture that took the time to turn his cube into a sphere is making great headway. The cost of the time it took to turn the cube into a sphere will be recouped by the speed of progress or at least that is the theory. That is working smart.
Then I reflected on it a bit more … working smart is important but so is working hard. The analogy that springs to mind is an Olympic athlete. To achieve a world class level of competitiveness an athlete has to work both hard and smart. The athlete has to work hard in the sense that “no pain no gain”. I used to lift weights on a daily basis and the tactical measure of success was feeling the pain of a good work out. The pain meant that the muscle tissues were broken down and would rebuild and become stronger. Building a business is a lot like that and there is defiantly some heavy lifting required and some sacrifices to be made. Back to the Olympic athlete … Becoming world class athlete also means being smart about how you train. Elite athletes have to be smart about how they eat, manage their time and condition their mind. There is much more emphasis today on sports psychology than a decade or two ago. I chatted with a friend that is a coach and had trained an Olympic athlete to visualize their run before the event … the athlete one the first ever gold medal for Canada at home. Elevating your game means working both hard and smart the two are closely intertwined.
A sphere is definitely a superior shape for moving the ball forward on a plain. What if the terrain changes to a steep hill either up or down? Then managing the sphere may actually be more effort than the cube with no opportunity to pause and rest. There is a lesson here but I am not certain what it is.
Working hard and working smart are not mutually exclusive and IMHO both are essential for starting a business. An important consideration to remember is that working hard does not equate to working smart and lots of activity isn’t necessarily progress. When you are feeling busy but don’t seem to be making progress that may be an indicator to pause, reflect and work smart not hard.
Thank you to Elias for the inspiration.
Ian Graham
Great article Ian! We’ve been through a few brainstorming sessions related to our marketing and sales. After a few minor changes and ensuring we target niches we’re specialized in, we have found that we are working smarter and not necessarily as hard at gaining the leads that can truly benefit from our services. It’s very important to re-assess often (every month or so) on work accomplished and assess if it was accomplished by working smart.