“Both you and these people who are with you will surely wear yourselves out. For this thing is too much for you; you are not able to perform it by yourself.” Exodus 18:18 NKJV
There was a time when I felt doing work vigils was the only way to get work done. I would doze off with my laptop on the bed and the moment I opened my eyes after sleeping for about 4 or 5 hours, I got back to work immediately. This was the norm for years until I realised that it didn’t lead to much career progress, just activity and exhaustion.
But keeping long hours is just one part of the hustle culture. There’s also rigorous work – the work you do until you’re tired. There’s multitasking, perfectionism, and zero breaks. Rest is also taboo.
Some organisations adopt this culture. While there is a phase where it looks like this is the only way to get things off the ground, using it as the norm afterwards only leads to sacrifices you had no business making and heartbreaks you shouldn’t have experienced.
Imagine if Jethro never advised Moses to work smarter. Moses would have crashed a couple of times because of poor health conditions.
How can you work smart instead of hard? A simple Google search will give you something to work with, but I’ll share two points you won’t find.
1. Understand why you are working
What motivates you? Are you doing all that work to create a better life for your family? If yes, then why are you sacrificing your family time for work? You may eventually create that better life for your family, but you won’t be in the picture emotionally and probably physically.
Are you working hard so you can retire early? Then why sentence yourself to a lifetime of medication when you retire? Yes, you’ll gather wealth, but because of poor health conditions, you may not enjoy it so much.
2. Search for better ways to get that work done
Once you’re about to understand why you work and resolve to not sacrifice that reason now, you can begin your research on how to work smarter. Working smarter will involve rest, delegation, prioritisation, knowledge sharing with teams, focus, reflection, and many more strategies.
My work style has changed multiple times over the past decade. People who knew me at the beginning of my career may expect I would work the same way now, but that’s far from the truth. New phases in life require a restructuring of how you work.
A switch in careers, new relationships, marriage, children, and relocation are all phases. You must recognise these phases and restructure your life intentionally because it won’t fix itself.
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