Work Smarter?

Often, I advise my younger colleagues to work smarter when I feel they’re missing obvious ways to be more efficient. But reflecting on those conversations, I realize I might be wrong.

Whenever I say work smarter, I’m speaking from a place of ignorance—the ignorance of forgetting what it’s like to be a beginner. At the start, shortcuts are invisible. You only find them after effort: repetition, mistakes, and learning that slowly reveal patterns.

What I see as “smarts” today is simply the outcome of years of trial, error, and persistence. Every mistake, every late night, every dead end—they built my instincts. That’s why I can now see what works and what doesn’t, almost instantly.

Being smarter isn’t the opposite of working harder; smarter is what emerges from harder. Shortcuts only appear once you’ve already walked the long road.