Exerting more effort doesn't help if you're on the wrong trajectory.

– Working harder on the wrong thing just wastes more time.
– Learning more from a biased source will lead you further from the truth.
– Doubling down on a toxic relationship only sets you up for more headaches.

Before you try harder, make sure you are walking a path that leads where you want to go.

Is working harder at this the best solution to this problem?

A third way to waste a bottleneck’s time is to make it work on parts you don’t need.” “You mean spare parts?” asks Bob. “I mean anything that isn’t within the current demand,

In many cases, the bottleneck to achieving results is simply making the time to do the work.

You're capable of exercising, but are you making the time?

You're capable of writing, but are you making the time?

You're capable of reading, but are you making the time?

I don’t even know what ‘working hard’ means. If you get to sit behind a desk all day in an air-conditioned room, there’s no such thing as hard work.

one of the most frustrating things is seeing people that clearly are not reaching potential because they are not working hard enough

There is an enormous difference between working hard on something that is a grind and working hard on something that comes easily to you.

Exceptional results almost exclusively happen when you work hard on an area where you have some natural aptitude. Play to your strengths.

The secret to being productive is to work on the right thing—even if it's at a slow pace.

Telling someone to “work smarter” is useless because it assumes they already know what smarter looks like. If they did, they’d be doing it.

“Work smarter, not harder” is often framed as the opposite of hard work, but working smart is itself a derivative of hard work. You have to work hard to figure out what working smart means.

It’s like a chess master spotting the best move instantly; it looks like working smart, but it’s built on thousands of hours of working hard to earn that intuition.

What looks like working smarter is often just contextual insights uncovered through deep, sustained effort that others would find unreasonable.

Working hard is important. But more effort does not necessarily yield more results. “Less but better” does.

You have to work hard to discover how to work smart. You won't know the best solutions until you've made nearly all the mistakes.

We need to redefine "hard work" to include "hard thinking."

The person who outsmarts you is out working you. The person who finds shortcuts is out working you. The person with a better strategy is out working you.

Usually, the hardest work is thinking of a better way to do it.

Many people work hard, but few people work on the highest and best thing.

Usually, it takes no more effort to work on high leverage tasks than it does to work on low leverage ones.

It's just a matter of directing your energy.

Many people try to work less by working more and embracing productivity hacks

The key to working less is working less and then working through all the discomfort and eventual clarity that surfaces