Tip #6: Work Hard on the Right Things
What’s more important, working hard or working smart? They’re both important, but working hard without working smart won’t get you very far. The problem with just working hard is that it can mislead you to believe that if you only work hard enough you’ll succeed. The problem with just working smart is that even if you work on exactly the right tasks, you might not put in enough effort to get where you want to go.
Working hard without working smart won’t get you very far.
The best solution is to work hard on the right things. That doesn’t mean working your ass off blindly for 80+ hours per week. That also doesn’t mean kicking back because you’re confident you know exactly what to do.
What’s the right thing to be working on? It’s the highest value task you can currently think of. Sometimes the highest value task might be thinking of other high value tasks. Most of the time, working on the right thing won’t mean working on what’s easy or mindless. High value tasks are often difficult or mentally taxing.
A big part of working on the right things may not seem like work at all. That’s because you need to give yourself time and perspective enough to figure out where to put your efforts. I find that the best place to find this perspective isn’t sitting at a desk. Some of my clearest thoughts come while going for a run or a walk, or when sailing, or during a casual conversation with friends. Those things may not sound like work, but they’re often much more valuable to my work than sitting at a desk.
What I’m telling you is not to fall into the “work = desk time” mindset that is so common in big business. We need to remember that big business got that way because face time was the easiest aspect of work to measure for information workers, not because it was the most effective thing to measure. In your own business, you’ll have many more important things to measure than how much time you spend at your desk.
Much more important than working hard is knowing how to find the right thing to work on. Paying attention to what is going on in the world. Seeing patterns. Seeing things as they are rather than how you want them to be. Being able to read what people want. Putting yourself in the right place where information is flowing freely and interesting new juxtapositions can be seen. But you can save yourself a lot of time by working on the right thing. Working hard, even, if that’s what you like to do.
Caterina Fake, Working hard is overrated
