Smart Work or hard work

 Introduction:

• We live an era where overworking has become more of a habit. It has now taken the form of a drug and every drug has its side own effects. This one includes stress, exhaustion and a less productive- more time-consuming routine. It also disrupts the normal body functioning which compromises on the 6-7 hours of sleep.
• Hard work is done by everybody, but one has to be smart about where to work hard to achieve your goal. For e.g.the workers/laborers at a construction, mine or road construction sites work blood and sweat, but are they getting anywhere?
• So, now the question is what about the sayings, “the harder you work, the luckier you get”. So if you ask, whether to work hard or not? Well, of course, hard work is necessary but it is significant for smart and hard work go hand in hand. Remember, the effort is important but knowing where to invest those efforts make all the difference.
• Smart work is about making the right strategy, sketching a disciplined work routine which can help to grow your visions and be more productive. At the end of the day what you have achieved is that WHAT counts. For starters, try to decode the success journey of someone who you really look up to who has put a ton of efforts, hard work and smart work to make it happen.

So what is the real difference between hard work and smart work?

• To put it in simple words, hard work is when you do a certain amount of work dedicatedly for a certain amount of time whereas smart work is when you do the same amount of work more efficiently in less time.
• Generally, hard work requires physical abilities while smart work demands mental abilities thereby driving your creative side. Smart work is misunderstood for taking short-cuts. Note that, shortcuts are explored with smart techniques and tricks which doesn’t mean the person doing it is lazy. A smart path shows the ability to outperform and be more organized.
• The grind is necessary, putting in the right hours and really working on stuff is extremely necessary. There is a thin line between working for the sake of it and working to truly achieve the goals. Doing the former isn’t necessarily going to move the wheel forward. A lot of time you work hard, but you spin the wheel in the mud and just not go forward.
• A very revered principle known as 80/20 principle shows 20% efforts to be made for 80% results. So if you can incorporate this into your working model and adapt to smart working techniques, you can move your projects at a little faster pace. Focus on the 20% of the things in business or life that gives 80% of the results.
• Hard work is certainly the core reason behind success, but it does not mean to take the monogamous route and work just for the sake of it, because it is nothing but wasting time. Smart work has an advantage of knowing where to go, how to reach and how efficiently to reach.
• To sum up, smart work is executing a pre-planned task armed with knowledge and innovation.

• Quick Facts:

• Smart work focuses on Specific Measurable Attainable Result oriented and Time-bound
• Use of old ideas in a smarter way to get more results
• Smart work benefits by – a sense of fulfillment, productivity, effectiveness and add value.
• Smart work focuses on important tasks
• Smart work is not a substitute for hard work but they are both two sides of the same coin.

Conclusion: 

• If you want to succeed, you need to inculcate both hard and smart working model into your system. Don’t get caught up in the myth of just working hard, instead make sure you put it in the right areas, have a tunnel vision,
• focus and track your progress. If you are working towards your goal consistently, you can absolutely achieve what you want. So, it is always necessary to have that right balance of both.