Hard work or smart work

Asked by: Guest - 12 May 16

I had been asked my working style in my last interview and the question slowly transformed to a debate between hard work or smart work. For an interview, the question appeared to be a double-edged sword to me. What could be an appropriate reply to this?

Our expert said - 12 May 16

Hard work and smart work should not be segregated and considered as a topic of debate. Hard work and smart work are always interlinked to achieve success in any task. Both, hard work and smart work are acknowledged and respected separately, but the success path becomes tricky and difficult if the individual sticks to one and leaves the other.

Many a times, people consider smart work as a short-cut to success and consider it to be unfair means. Instead, smart work should be taken in a positive manner. Smartness is using brilliance to achieve the target. To achieve success one need to have smart ideas and should be willing to work hard enough to implement those smart ideas to action.

Smart work does not mean the lack of necessity to hard work. It is often a misconception that hard work is not required if the individual knows how to perform smart work. Hard work always remains the basis of smart work. Smart work comes by knowledge and intellect. One need to input sufficient amount of hard work to gain the knowledge for working smartly. Precisely, a success story comes from the unique blend of hard word and smart work in optimum quantity.