My Unpopular Opinion on Working Smart

Hello there. Molweni, Molweni:)

I hope you’re all doing well and ready for the final push of the month. Month-end is always a busy time for me, so I’ve learned to brace myself going into it. May this week be a productive and fruitful one for all of us.

As the title suggests, this week I want us to talk about a concept that’s looooooved in corporate spaces; working smart. It's become a bit of a buzz phrase lately. But what I often find missing from the conversation is the practical “how to” that should follow the hype of “You’ve got to work smart.”

A lot of you may not agree with what I’m about to say, and that’s okay. I’m actually looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Here’s my unpopular opinion:

You can’t work smart until you’ve worked hard.

Working smart is not about finding shortcuts, it’s about improving efficiency. In my experience, I only started working smart after I had put in the hours to truly understand the ins and outs of my job. My most effective work strategies have come from doing the work, reflecting on how I work, trying different approaches, and then refining them over time.

The danger of confusing “working smart” with shortcuts is that you rob yourself of the opportunity to really learn the job. You miss out on building the kind of depth that helps you troubleshoot faster, recognize when something is off, and understand why things go wrong. That kind of insight only comes from time spent doing the work.

The goal of working smart isn’t just to spend less time on tasks, it’s to execute them more efficiently while still achieving the right results. Sure, you may be working faster, but are you delivering quality work? Are you meeting your KPIs? Are you getting the outcomes that actually matter?

You can’t run away from hard work.

In fact, I’d encourage us to lean into the hard work because that’s what gets you to a place where you no longer have to work hard to produce quality work. You build up to working smart. It’s the fruit of hard work, consistent introspection, self-awareness, evaluation, and a commitment to continuous learning and improvement.

No one can fully define what “working smart” looks like for you. They can give you a framework, sure, but it’s not something you can download from a LinkedIn post or a YouTube video. You can’t skip the personal process. “Work smart, not hard” is a fantastic concept, and I’m fully on board with it but we need to start talking about what it takes to actually get there.

Honestly, we need to add a disclaimer: Working smart does not mean bypassing hard work. Some people are in their first month of their first job talking about “working smart”...uhmmm, excuse me Ma’am, Sir?!

Many workplaces are struggling with a lack of follow-through, not because people aren’t capable, but because some are trying to skip the foundational work. They’re waiting for the job to get easier. The truth is, it won’t. You just have to get better. You have to build better systems, develop better processes, and improve your approach so you can do your job more effectively.

Managers are frustrated. Deliverables are sub-par. And in many cases, it’s because people are chasing shortcuts. But here’s the thing: Efficiency without mastery is meaningless. And you can’t master what you haven’t actually spent time working on.

You know in the movies (this is the crime series fanatic in me talking), there’s always that high-stakes moment with a bomb about to go off. And then, right at the last second, one person steps in, does a quick scan, and just knows exactly which wire to cut, then boom...well, not boom but the bomb is then diffused at that point😂.

Here’s the thing, that person isn’t really being paid to cut the wire. They’re being paid for knowing which wire to cut.

What we don’t talk about enough is the back-end, invisible, not-so-glamorous work that got them to that point; the training, the failures, the pattern recognition, the years of experience. People want to watch that 15-second wire-cutting moment and then get promoted the next month to be that person...in a high-pressure situation, might I add.

As the cool kids say, “Girl, bye👀!”

I want to get behind the idea of having professionals who truly work smart. Can you imagine how efficient our companies, our government (am I being too overzealous here?), even our country could be? But we’re struggling to get there because too many of us just don’t want to put in the work. We’re not committed to getting things done well, only getting them done. Tick the box, move on to the next task.

So, those are my thoughts. I know this might not be a popular take in a world that celebrates shortcuts, quick wins, and overnight success, but I really believe that working smart is something you earn through working hard first. It's not about skipping steps; it's about learning how to take better ones.

But that’s just my perspective. I’d love to hear yours. What does working smart look like for you? Have you ever had a moment where you realized your hard work laid the foundation for better efficiency later on?

Have an intentional and blessed week.

Lots of love,

Zizo