There are many people who advocate to work smart in industry while devaluing the contributions of hard work. There are endless mantras of "Smart work is better than hard work" and a frequent communication of organization is on these compasses. So, I have been on the quest of debunking these terms to their true nature as they are often encompassed in various overinflated project management and human resource management terms- which are a failure of the concept in general.
I find asking these questions worthwhile to understand great work:
I find asking these questions worthwhile to understand great work:
- What does great work look like?
- If I had to create my first principles of doing great work which would hold true for any field- how would that intersection look like?
And these questions not only give the answer to what great work and great thinkers look like- they also answer how to identify someone smarter than you so that you can inspire yourself to work hard towards a meaningful purpose of life.
So, first things first- people talk past each other on what is hard work and smart work because people often talk about two different things and confuse them to lie on the same axis when they are not.
One cannot get anywhere in life without Hard work. Hard work is often a virtue of a character. It translates directly to their resilience. Hard work evidently leads to the pushing outside comfort zones and helps challenge the boundaries of our capabilities. It therefore lays the groundwork of having the first principles framework defined at the first place. Hard work, therefore cannot be measured on the scale of time as it is non-linear in its product.
Smart work on the other hand is to add efficiency, effectiveness and strategic planning towards a commonly agreed upon goal by a collected group of individuals. It is a It is therefore, an attribute of small sprints which are encompassed to have multiple people contribute. Smart work usually strongly contributes to micros. In short, smart work is optimization of processes.
Now, great work is an example of Olympics of creative contribution to the world- where the person has to have the resilience and extended hard work period to have a truthful and meaningful contribution to the world. And to be able to produce great work- there is evidently a mix of smart and hard work.
Thus, the answer to the above questions posed for great work have been the following in my reflections.
- When broken down philosophically, great work looks like it has noticed gaps with curiosity, interconnected disciplines, explored promising and deep questions while simplifying the explanation to embrace restrictions that are seen through the journey of great work.
- Doing great work requires great people around you who do not belittle your ambitions. Almost 90% of the above features of great work would require hard work. Although it may be difficult to conclusively prove that hard work is necessary to achieve greatness, the overwhelming empirical evidence supports this notion as strongly as the evidence for mortality itself. This is why it's vital to immerse yourself in something you are deeply passionate about.
