The 3 Pillars of Smart Work: Making The Hours Count

Understanding the Misconception Between Smart Work and Hard Work

Mar 10, 2025

In this issue:

Working Smart vs. Working Hard: A False Dichotomy
The 3 Pillars of Smart Work
Bringing It Together: Smart Work = Efficiency + Creativity + Discipline
The Smart Work Application Worksheet

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“You've got to work smart, not hard.”

It's advice we've all heard—maybe from a boss, a productivity guru, or even a well-meaning colleague. As a leader, you may have even given this advice yourself.

But here’s the problem: this advice is often misunderstood. Too many people interpret "working smart" as an excuse to cut corners, avoid effort, or seek shortcuts. This leads to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, and a lack of real, meaningful progress.

In this article, I want to unpack this misconception and redefine what working smart actually means.

Working Smart vs. Working Hard: A False Dichotomy

I firmly believe in working smart. There’s no doubt about it.

But I take issue with the "not hard" part of the advice. That’s where the misunderstanding starts.

Smart work is not about doing less—it’s about doing more with less. It’s about maximizing impact, not minimizing effort.

If you look at history, the most successful individuals did not just work smart—they worked smart and hard.

Elon Musk famously works over 80-100 hours per week, splitting his time between Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. Musk doesn't just work long hours—he prioritizes high-leverage activities that move his companies forward.
Warren Buffett reads for five to six hours a day, continuously learning, analyzing, and improving his investment strategies.
Michael Jordan, despite being one of the most naturally talented athletes, was known for outworking everyone else in practice.

The common denominator for all of them was that they made their hours count.

“Don’t count the hours, make the hours count.”

Smart work and hard work are not enemies. They are partners.

The best results come when you combine what I call the three pillars of smart work. Let’s discuss them next.

The 3 Pillars of Smart Work

I have always been a productivity freak (I bet my wife and kids will vouch for that,) which stems from my need to be perfect.

I used to set lofty goals, put all the plans and calendars in order, and get all excited about what I was going to accomplish. But as I started executing the perfect plan, I would start facing obstacles and challenges that would make it really hard for me to keep going.

Why? Not because I had lofty goals or that I wasn’t working hard enough. My biggest obstacle was that I relied solely on working hard and not being smart about how I would achieve my goals.

Here is what I have learnt over the past several decades of experimenting with work: If you want to work smart, and accomplish your biggest goals, you need to focus on three key pillars:

Efficiency – Optimizing how you work to get more done in less time.
Creativity – Thinking differently and leveraging innovation to solve problems.
Discipline – Bringing focus and persistence to high-impact work.

Let’s break these down.

#1 Efficiency: Focus on What Truly Matters

At the core of working smart is efficiency. It's about making sure that every minute you spend is meaningful.

A Harvard Business Review study found that high-performing individuals focus on fewer tasks, but execute them at a higher quality. They are ruthless with their time.

Think about your daily work. Are you spending time on high-value tasks or just keeping busy?

Amazon's Jeff Bezos has a rule: he focuses on only three big decisions per day—the ones that will have the biggest impact.
Steve Jobs was known for saying “Focus is about saying no.” He ruthlessly eliminated distractions and worked only on the highest-impact initiatives.

How do you become more efficient?

Here are a few simple shifts you can make to drive efficiency in your work every single day:

Plan your day before you start – Take 5 minutes every morning to define your top 3 priorities before checking emails or messages. If you don’t set your agenda, someone else will.
Batch similar tasks & reduce multitasking – Instead of jumping between emails, meetings, and deep work, group similar tasks together. This reduces mental switching costs and keeps you in flow.
Set the “right” deadlines – Work expands to fill the time you give it (famously known as Parkinson’s Law). Cut your estimated time in half for tasks, and you'll often get them done faster without losing quality.
Eliminate low-value work – Not every meeting needs to happen, and not every email needs a reply. Before doing any task, ask: Is this truly necessary? Cut, automate, or delegate anything that isn’t.

Frameworks to tap on

You can use one or more of these frameworks to further drive efficiency in your work:

Use the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks into urgent vs. important. I discuss this framework in my book The Leader’s Playbook.
Follow the Pareto Principle to prioritize the 20% of activities that will yield 80% of the results. We discussed this framework in detail in The Pareto Principle: The Secret to High-Impact Leadership.

Ask yourself: Which tasks truly move the needle? Do those first.

#2 Creativity: Find Smarter Solutions

Smart work isn’t just about doing things faster. It’s also about doing things differently.

Creativity allows you to find better solutions, leverage resources more effectively, and break out of inefficient habits.

When you are creative, you are more open and adaptable to new ways of doing things, which in turn opens up smarter approaches to solutions.

Bill Gates once said, "I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it."
Google’s “20% Time” rule allows employees to spend one-fifth of their workweek on creative side projects. This led to innovations like Gmail, Google Maps, and AdSense.

How do you spark creativity?

There are some simple shifts you can make in your work to spark new ideas and drive better outcomes:

Question everything – Don’t just accept the way things are done. Ask: “Is there a better way?” Challenge existing processes and explore unconventional solutions.
Give yourself thinking space – Creativity doesn’t happen when you’re constantly busy. Block out time in your schedule for brainstorming, reflection, or even a walk—your best ideas often come when your mind is relaxed.
Seek diverse perspectives – Creativity thrives when you mix different viewpoints. Talk to colleagues from other teams, industries, or backgrounds. Sometimes, the best ideas come from unexpected places.

Frameworks to tap on

You can use one or more of these frameworks to tap on your own and your team’s creative potential to drive smart work:

Delegation: If you’re a leader, delegate tasks not to get rid of work, but to maximize your team’s strengths.
Automation: Use AI and automation tools to eliminate repetitive tasks. According to McKinsey, automation could save 20-30% of a knowledge worker's time.
Use frameworks like Design Thinking and The Six Hats of Critical Thinking to brainstorm innovative solutions. I discuss these frameworks in my book The Leader’s Playbook.

Ask yourself: How can I solve this problem in a new or different way?

#3 Discipline: Show Up, Day After Day

Even the smartest strategies fail without commitment.

Kobe Bryant practiced at 4 AM daily, hours before anyone else got to the gym.
Thomas Edison created 10,000 failed prototypes before inventing the lightbulb.

Working smart means staying relentlessly focused on high-value work.

No distractions. No shortcuts.

Studies show that office workers are interrupted every 11 minutes—and it takes 23 minutes to regain focus.

How to show up every day?

Discipline is hard, but it’s a skill you can learn like any other:

Start with a clear purpose – Remind yourself why your work matters. When you connect daily tasks to a bigger mission, motivation comes naturally.
Build consistent habits – Success isn’t about one big effort—it’s about small, daily actions. Set a routine that keeps you moving forward, even on low-energy days.
Embrace progress over perfection – Some days will be tough, but showing up imperfectly is better than not showing up at all. Keep pushing forward, even if it's just one small step.
Manage your energy, not just your time – Prioritize sleep, movement, and mental breaks. A well-rested, focused version of you will always outperform an exhausted one.

Frameworks to tap on

You can use one or more of these frameworks to tap into to develop the daily habits you need to be successful:

Mind-boxing – A framework I created to schedule focused deep work. You can read more about it here: Mind Boxing: How Leaders (Should) Spend Their Time.
Parkinson’s Law – Work expands to fill the time given to it. If you set tight deadlines, you’ll finish tasks faster. I discuss this framework in great detail here: Parkinson's Law: Why You’re Always Busy and What to Do About It.

Ask yourself: How can I make progress every day towards my long-term goals?

Bringing It Together: Smart Work = Efficiency + Creativity + Discipline

The misconception about "working smart" is that it means doing less work.

But in reality, smart work is about making your efforts count. It’s about optimizing how you work, not avoiding hard work.

**Smart Work = Efficiency + Creativity + Discipline**

At its core, working smart is a blend of three key elements:

Efficiency – Focusing on the right tasks and getting more done in less time.
Creativity – Finding better solutions, questioning old ways, and leveraging tools and collaboration.
Discipline – Showing up consistently, staying disciplined, and committing to high-impact work.

When you bring these three together, you’re not just working harder or faster—you’re working smarter, more strategically, and with greater impact.

The best leaders and high achievers don’t just rely on one of these elements—they master all three. They streamline their workflow, think innovatively, and stay relentlessly committed to their goals.

So instead of asking “How can I work less?”, start asking: