All About You — Day 27: Work Smarter AND Harder
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[For “Day 26: Learn What You Need to Learn,” click here.]
We’re in the home stretch of this “All About You!” series, and we’re going to cover Days 27 to 30 all this week!
You’ve probably heard the expression that to get ahead in life you need to work harder, not smarter. That’s all well and good for most jobs, tasks, and, even, occupations. For example, most employees would do very well for themselves if they applied the Pareto Principle—or the 80/20 Rule as it’s sometimes called—to their work.
But, that’s just not enough for someone who is serious about making their big dreams come true. For those of us with really big dreams—and there are a lot of us here!—we have to work smarter AND harder. After I explain the very simple reason why, I think you will gladly agree.
WORK SMARTER AND HARDER
“Work smarter, not harder” is excellent advice for employees, especially corporate or government employees who want to climb the corporate or bureaucratic ladder. Why? Because those types of positions always have very well-established, clearly-defined job duties and procedures for doing just about everything. And, an endless train of emails, memos, and meetings constantly add to, revise, and update those policies. How in the world do office employees get all their work done?
There are only two ways:
(1) Work Harder: Work all the time to try to get everything done; or,
(2) Work Smarter: Only do 20% of the work—the most important 20%.
I’m pretty sure we all would rather do only 20% of our work—the most important 20%—really, really well and forget about the less important 80%, especially if that would result in our getting more raises, bonuses, and promotions that much faster. So, why isn’t everyone who works for someone else doing it?
Mostly because they don’t know how to do it. They don’t know how to figure out what the most important 20% of their work is so they don’t know what to focus on and what to ignore. But, I have answers! If you are an employee and you want to move up in that world, study and apply the principles taught in these articles:
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“Eat that Frog!”
“20 Tips for Highly Effective Time Management”
“7 Quick Tips for More Time and Less Stress”
“Get a Handle on Procrastination”
“Success in the Corporate World”
In Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers
WORKING HARD
There’s a popular saying: Women have to work twice as hard to be considered half as good. As a result, women are like little ants—working, working, working. They complain that they do more than everyone else, and they do! It’s a myth that people get ahead because of hard work. Likability, strategic thinking, networking, being a team player are but a few of the other factors that go into crafting a successful career.
Everyone is expected to carry his or her fair share of the weight. This doesn’t mean you should focus exclusively on working hard. Sometime I think women do so because it’s easier to do what we know best, rather than to engage in behaviors that seem foreign to you. One woman complained to me about the guys she worked with who, every Monday morning during football season, spent the first half hour of the day rehashing Sunday’s games with the boss.
“What a waste of time. Here I am working away and they’re talking about football!” she lamented. What bothered her even more was the fact these same guys were being tapped for prime assignments. Whereas women see it as “wasting the company’s money” to do anything other than focus on the task at hand between 8 A.M. and 5 P.M., men know that whether it’s talking about football or last weekend’s golf scores, they’re building relationships that will later work for them. In this situation her male coworkers were bonding with the boss in a way that allowed him to better know these team members. As a result, when growth opportunities became available, he picked them because he was familiar and comfortable with them.
And herein lies one of business’s best-kept secrets. People aren’t hired and promoted simply because they work hard. It happens because the decision maker knows the character of the person and feels confident about his or her ability not only to do the job, but also to do it in a way that promotes collegial team relationships. By keeping her nose to the grindstone, the woman was actually acting in a way detrimental to getting what she most wanted—more interesting work and an opportunity to show she was capable of doing more.
Dr. Frankel also provides tips for how to work smarter, not harder:
COACHING TIPS
Give yourself permission to “waste” a little time. If you’re not spending 5 percent of your day building relationships, you’re doing something wrong.
Define your work hours and stick with them. Remember Parkinson’s Law—Work expands to fill the time available. This isn’t to say there won’t be times when you must work overtime, but if you’re consistently the last one left at the office, there’s something wrong with that picture.
At the beginning of each day, define what you want to accomplish. You can avoid the tendency to take on whatever comes across your desk during the course of the day by deliberately scheduling it for a later time.
THE HARD-BUT-NOT-TOO-SMART WORKER
What Dr. Frankel was addressing was the hard-but-not-too-smart worker. And so does Brian Tracy in Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time
THE SMART-BUT-NOT-TOO-HARD WORKER
If you do follow the advice in the various articles listed above, you will no longer have to work evenings or weekends to outshine your coworkers and colleagues. You will have transformed yourself from a hard-but-not-too-smart worker to a smart-but-not-too-hard worker. And, that’s the best you can hope for as an employee relying on other people’s rules, decisions, and rewards for your work.
THE SMART-AND-HARD-WORKING ENTREPRENEUR
Now, what about the dreamer? The entrepreneur? Anyone who wants to establish streams of passive income or at least work from home and be our own boss? There are no “very well-established, clearly-defined job duties and procedures” for us! We are establishing and defining our job duties and procedures as we go. In time, we might have such very well-established and clearly-defined job duties for our employees or contractors. But, we do not follow anyone else’s protocol but our own. That’s part of what’s so great about being the architects of our own futures.
We can’t have the mentality of an employee when we plan how to make our dreams come true. Save that for our office jobs. But, when we think about our big dreams, we put on our entrepreneurial hats; and, we need to work both harder and smarter to pull it off. Does that scare you? It shouldn’t. And, if it does, then you really haven’t found your burning desire yet. Because when you do find something you love that much, this simple news—coupled with the fact that doing just that, working smarter and harder, practically guarantees success—will only excite you!
TO BE CONTINUED …
This is going to be an adventurous journey into our past, present, and future lives. None of us can be prepared for what we might find along the way. So, just sit back and enjoy the ride! Also, I hope at least some of you brave souls will share your answers, insights, and revelations in the comments below for everyone’s benefit!
When you’re done, collect your answers and keep them in a safe place. I recommend a diary. It makes a precious gift to someone you love, especially you!
[For “Day 28: Never, Never, Never Give Up!,” click here.]
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September 23rd, 2008 at 1:39 pm
“It’s a myth that people get ahead because of hard work. Likability, strategic thinking, networking, being a team player are but a few of the other factors that go into crafting a successful career.”
This is so true. I think the area where women really lack is self promotion, not hard work.
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Hi Vered! Thanks for your comment! I also agree that in my 10 years of working in various law offices, I saw a lot of women lawyers not only working too hard but also trying too hard to please everybody and, thus, sabotaging their own careers. That’s why for all corporate career women, I highly recommend Dr. Frankel’s book
.