In today’s fast-paced world, output matters. Every invention is made to improve our capability of producing a better outcome in the most efficient method. With minimum input, we try to generate the maximum result of energy and time.
Companies and individuals have started focusing on productivity, instead of hours worked, because an appearance of hard-working does not always mean you are working in an efficient way and attaining what you want to achieve.
What is Hard Work?
Hard work is inserting a great amount of passion and effort into your work. Humans work hard because they want to attain something very important that can’t be achieved without putting in lots of effort. So, hard work is an important key to success. There are always certain exceptions but they’re rare and we achieve them for what we struggle with. For hard work, people many times failed to plan their targets and insert maximum efforts at just one place and get failure after putting in too much effort.
What is Smart Work?
On the other hand, smart work means putting the utmost passion and effort into the work but do your work smartly and intelligently and accomplishing your goals. Smart work means staying specific in your aim, plan for your achievements, and set a proper time limit for every target or task. Suppose you can act on this advice, you surely will get success in your goal.
Contrary to the traditional belief it is hard work but modern belief says it is smart to work.
Key Points
Explain how you conquer mistakes. There’re times when you were neither a hard worker nor a smart worker. Suppose you bring it up, you can say how you overcame them.
Formal education isn’t just getting a paper but the center of knowledge. Smart people will take it as a wonderful opportunity of building a strong network and become a professional in some domains.
Hard Work Needs:
- Traditional format
- Commitment
- Monotonous
- Tedious
Smart Work Needs Requires:
- Builds your strengths
- Requires complete knowledge
- Saves slot of time
- The need for an hour
- Quick realization of your goals
Hard work means putting in more physical work than mental effort.
Benefits of Hard Work
- Hard work teaches discipline and patience.
- We feel satisfied after getting our set outcome.
- With hard work, we get to experience and knowledge and can help us do our work smartly even in the future.
Drawbacks of Hard Work
- Hard words consume lots of effort and time.
- Hard work is monotonous and boring.
- It is not the most efficient method.
- Working hard isn’t enough to achieve the desired goals.
- Hard work does not allow us to use our brain thus, we put in our physical efforts.
Smart work means putting in effort efficiently and get positive results.
Benefits of Smart Work
- It improved our productivity.
- Improves our creative and innovative thinking skills.
- Demands mental presence and thus improves our focus.
- Teaches time management.
- Smart work makes you more systematic and organized.
- Smart work is a need of an hour.
Drawbacks of Smart Work
Only smart work might not yield results. As we know, hard work can beat talent when talent does not work hard. Thus, we can’t rely on smart work.
- For smart work, we need knowledge and experience about the work that comes with hard work.
- Smart work can make us lazy, since we do less work & get more results.
What’s in your interest?
Your approach for Smart Work is working when prioritizing your work that results in attaining longer lasting and faster success that includes hard work – that consistently work at what you perceive worth working is required to achieve your success goal.
Smart Work vs Hard Work
|
Working Hard |
Working Smartly |
| You just perform a certain task | You get the job done in the most efficient way |
| Follow just one way for doing your work | Look for the multiple ways for completing your task |
| Start with a task before planning | First evaluate and then work |
| Work with complete dedication but outputs aren’t visible | Even with little inputs, outputs are visible |
| More of physical stress | Mental methods used more, and less physical work |
Finding Key Differences
- Hard work has got no time frame of completion whereas in smart work there’s a preset time for an accomplishment of the target or task.
- Mere hard work means burning a candle at both ends. Working hard never ends with favorable achievement. Whereas smart work results in certain success as a person act realistic in smart work.
- People who work smartly get more and people who work hard get less after a long period.
- Completion of the work will be measured in smart work as everything is running as per plan whereas there’re low chances of the measurement of the work done in hard work.
- Working hardly will cause strain and stress whereas chances of strain and stress stay low in smart work.
- Hard work means to apply full physical attempt with less brain whereas smart work means to make effort through brain & less dependency on your physical effort.
- Motivation and inspiration level in hard work is higher than smart work.
- At times people who get over smart accept their defeat early but hard-working people will never accept their defeat easily.
- People who prefer smart work can set their priorities whereas those who are working hard just begin work without setting priorities and ultimate goals.
The Final Takeaway
One can achieve great heights as well as lead a comfortable and better life if they include both hard and smart work together. Such a person with time attains all recognition and accolades. Suppose you aren’t smart then your hard work won’t pay.
A donkey does only hard work, while a horse does the hard work and uses his smartness if needed. In a similar may smart work is a result of your hard work, and to master your smart work quality one has to work hard. From hard work, we get the experience that helps us to discover many new things that help us work smartly. An effort is important, and where you make the effort makes a huge difference.