What is more important, hard work or smart work?

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Vinit Sharma, Let there be light !!!

23.1k Views
Originally Answered: What is important for success: Hard work or smart work?
Thanks for the A2A.

Let us first define:

Hard Work: Working hard implies applying lot of efforts (generally physical) for the
accomplishment of any task.

Smart Work: Working smartly generally implies thinking beforehand to achieve the same
results by applying minimum efforts (more mental effort).

The answer to your question can be answered by the following story:

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got
it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the
woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.

“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could
only bring 15 trees. 
The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was
bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. 

He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”

MORAL: Smart Work is more important than Hard Work. 

Hard work can keep you very busy at a task... Work smart to be more
productive... Nowadays, Productivity and Results matter more than being
busy...
Written Apr 6, 2015 • View Upvotes • Answer requested by Puneet Saini
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Duraiswamy Vaidyanathan Chandrasekar

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Originally Answered: What is important for success: Hard work or smart work?
From the question I assume you know the difference between hard and smart work. Then
the answer lies in your question itself! Where 'smartness' comes because one wants to be
successful. By hard work one can get along and need not aspire to be successful. Success
demands more than what one can do. And that comes from being smart in our work so that
it gets recognised and appreciated. Toiling long and hard unknown to others will satisfy only
those who (wrongly) think that 'hard work, like virtue, is its own reward!' But, that is NOT
success, you too know.
Written Apr 6, 2015 • View Upvotes • Answer requested by Puneet Saini
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Suhas Tambe, Author, 'Making of a Yoga Master"

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What is more important to a car - accelerator? or the steering wheel?

Hard work gives the momentum, the push, 'the stop at nothing' frame of mind. Smart work
steers us towards the intended destination.
So, its no either-or; we need both. Mere hard work can loose direction and mere smart work
may get trapped in mind games & loose the steam midway.
Written Apr 7, 2015 • View Upvotes
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Isha Jain
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Hard work : when you use your physical efforts more than your mental effort.
Smart work : when you give priority to your mental ability more than physical ability.

Both smart working and hard working are equally important to succeed. Most of the time
itdepends on the circumstances as well on the tasks which one should be applied

According to my notion hard work and smart work go simultaneously, but with hard work
you achieve your goal but in a one point you also wantsome smart work. As we all know
donkey also do hard work, so why its not a successful person there is a one reason behind
that it not use a smart work.

Basically it is the combination of both that gives us the desired results. But I would like to
put forward a fact that hard work is essential for smart work. Working smart is to enhance
the results of hard work. Hard work is like a chemicalreaction and smart is the catalyst to
improve therate of reaction.

Written Jan 24, 2015 • View Upvotes

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Rishabh Gupta, Life is short ..gear down and enjoy :D
8.1k Views
Both of these are equally important according to me. Yup, there's no alternative to hard
work in some situations but in situations where one doesn't have sufficient time and
resources to do the job then smart work plays a vital role. According to what I have seen as a
student smart work can help you to achieve smaller targets (eg.class tests or unit tests at
school)easily but when it comes to bigger targets (eg. Final or board exams) there is no
substitute to hard work.
Written Apr 7, 2015 • View Upvotes
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Hirra Sultan, What you seek is what you see

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Originally Answered: What is important for success: Hard work or smart work?
Both are important. You just need to blend them together to produce optimum results. 
Recognize the areas that need to be worked upon smartly, then work hard on them.
Thanks for A2A
Written Apr 6, 2015 • View Upvotes • Answer requested by Puneet Saini
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Ajay D Yadav, Love-Respect-Money
3.8k Views
According to me smart work is more preferable in today's world.
Example - You want to keep a spherical object from one place to another. So hardwork
would be you are lifting the object and keeping it to the requires destination and smart work
would be you are rolling it and doing the same task.This is the simplest difference between
hard work and smart work.
Written Jan 19 • View Upvotes
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Gayoo Ramu
3.2k Views
i think both hard work and smart work is important in one's life.but this modern life sets
high competition level, whole world is busy in their works all are busy just to attain that only
first position so one should have some smart ability to show his uniqueness to all.

i ll simply differentiate this terms using our education system. presently all the school board
results are results of hard work if one is getting good results it is bcoz of his/her hard efforts
but the competitive exams just checks the smart ability of a student so cracking competitive
is smart work but that too need a small hard work so as i already said both are important
but in their own way.
Written Jan 23 • View Upvotes
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