Work hard, work smart

If you work hard, you are surely bound to be noticed and appreciated; to some extent, it will facilitate your career progress. This is because hard work makes you focus on your job and without focus, your effort will be disjointed. It also implies devoting long hours to your job, but does that make you efficient and bring true recognition?

Rather than just working hard, you also need ways and means to be smartly adept at your job. This is because:

·   Smart work helps you achieve your purpose: Unfortunately, you may strive, toil and sweat; but credit may still elude you. And credit is one of the major causative factors for success. You may exert to keep abreast with all workplace developments and try to perform accordingly; however, doing just that may not for sure guarantee you a rise or make you an expert to engage yourself in an independent enterprise.

·   Working hard offsets your work-life balance: For example, you may neglect your personal well-being or overlook your domestic matters; the adverse effects of such disregards may not seem of significance today, but will strike you in a big way after some time. That is the time you will repent for not maintaining a proper work-life balance.

·   Your quality of life is influenced by stiff endeavours: Prolonged working hours impose inherent demands to exert more. This can lead to exhaustion, nervous tension and despair. You may end up being in a perpetual state of gloominess and despondency.

Do you aspire for the above conditions in your life? Surely, no! So, the question is how can you escape from your present approach and start working smartly? Here is how you can do so:

·   Seek assistance:  Everybody harbours a hidden desire to rise in an organization and claim credit. In your pursuit towards excellence and success, you definitely require advice, encouragement and help from others. Assistance can manifest itself in several ways – direct and indirect – and help you stay focused on your work. While members of your family can do so by taking care of your personal needs, your co-workers can help by rendering professional support, including sharing your workload, particularly in spheres in which you may not be practiced.

·   Set priorities:  You have to take care of vital things in your life based on their exigency before you address insignificant matters. This is what priorities are all about. This calls for arranging your daily routine appropriately and attain the maximum as you focus your skills to a particular aspect. You are more charged up to address important matters as the day begins; that is why important activities are scheduled early so that you are impelled to deal with remaining issues in a superior manner rather than haphazardly.

·   Have achievable objectives:  Your first step need not be a big leap. It is never advisable to try achieving several objectives in one go. However, if they are inter-related and are mutually supported, you may be able to do so. Therefore, it is always better to select one or maximum two objectives at any given time and devote your entire effort in attaining them. In case you attempt to take on several goals simultaneously, all that you would achieve would be indistinct pricks; in the end you would have made very minimal progress. And it is your progress at work that will give you happiness.

·   Have respite:  Working twenty hours a day will take its toll. There are stories of business magnates who did so, but such instances are exceptions. People may have been successful in creating a monumental domain for themselves, but surely things could have been greater if they took breaks. Indulging in pursuits that are tenuously imaginative or that call for intense deliberations is alright, you will not attain absolute success if you refrain from putting your feet up. Leisure activities rejuvenate you to perform optimally at work.

Remember that being happy at work is a result of your decision to be happy. You have to change the very relationship you have with your mindset. You will be happy if you get up in the morning and go to bed at night; and during the day do whatever you want to do. That is what being smart is actually all about.