Why Is Working Smart Better Than Working Hard?
‘Work smart instead of working hard’ is an adage that you’ve heard more than a hundred times in your life. Why do you think this thought is assuming an important position in the recent times? This is because, in the modern times, life is so fast-paced that you always end up falling short of time and delivering less work. If you work hard, you’ll only slog, slog and slog with no return at all. Instead, if you work smart, you’ll not only use your time in an optimal manner but also save on your energy.
When you work smart, you tend to come up with optimal solutions and manage your time in the best way possible. For example, if you usually find your work desk in a complete mess and are unable to locate important stuff kept there, you’ll be only wasting your time. Instead, if you spend the last 5 minutes of office hours in clearing the clutter and keeping everything in the right place, you’d save more time the next day. This will also enhance your focus.
Working hard is usually interpreted as toiling hard without applying your brain. Say, there’s person A who works hard and continues to work in spite of falling sick. There’s another person B who works efficiently but when he is sick, he rests for a day and then gets back to work. Whose work do you think would be better? Of course, person B’s. That’s because he takes a break when his body tells him that it’s tired. When he gets back, he is full of energy to do his tasks. A fresh mind breeds fresh thoughts. If you wish to be efficient towards your work, without toiling too hard, you must learn to work smart.
Working smart also means planning better. It’s unfair to accept work from several people and then deliver low-quality work. Instead, you should learn to plan well if you wish to work smart. You should learn to say ‘no’ when you know, you just can’t do something and say ‘yes’ when the offer made to you is enticing. A person working hard would rather welcome anything that comes his way and lose his mental balance and health trying to switch between various jobs.
Lastly, working smart is better than working hard because it lets you nurture your relationships with people. When you work hard, you tend to engross yourself so much in your work that you often ignore the people around you. But, when you choose to work smart, you do more work in less time. As a result, you get time to spend quality time with your people.
