"Work smart, not hard!"
You hear and read it everywhere.
Everyone loves to say it.
Why? Because it makes them sound intelligent. And everyone loves sounding intelligent. It gives them a quick dopamine hit that lasts maybe seven seconds, but hey, that's enough to feel amazing for a moment.
This advice is especially popular in our field — software engineering. We're problem solvers, right? We love puzzles, we adore challenges. But more than that, we love solving them in smart, elegant ways. That's basically our job to find smart, efficient solutions to complex problems.
And I'm 100% on board with that.
I live for those moments when a well-crafted solution clicks into place — something minimal, efficient, maybe even beautiful and artistic. The kind of solution that makes you lean back in your chair, smile uncontrollably, and think, “Damn boy, that was good!”
However
This is still the worst advice you can give to anyone. If you know anything about me, you know I'm not a hater. I don't usually hate on things without good reasons. But this advice? I absolutely hate it — and for very good reasons.
On the surface level, it sounds brilliant and everyone loves it. But if you dig deeper, you'll find tons of issues with it.
Disclaimer: this is a hot take 🔥 — I acknowledge that, but it's my personal, subjective opinion and nobody has to think the same way.
First of all, this quote is overused to the point of becoming cheezy. It doesn't add any real value in any situation. It immediately raises sensible questions like:
What exactly is the smart way?
What makes you think this is a smart way?
How do you define “smart” in this context?
Who decides what “working smart” actually means?
And many more.
If you tell someone to "work smarter" without explaining how, don't expect them to appreciate your advice — and rightfully so. Don't just throw out generic slogans. Instead, offer a real value. This is especially important for those in leadership roles who serve as role models, like supervisors, mentors, professors, teachers, managers, senior/principal engineers, you name it.
If you want others to think deeply, just tell them there is a smarter way or give them a hint they can latch onto to start their own thinking. Don't leave them hanging with empty buzzwords.
You Don't Get to Be Smart Without the Grind
Let's start with the most important point of all:
Nobody knows what the “smart” way is until they've worked hard enough to find it. As a software engineer, I'm constantly trying to find smarter ways to do things — and that's a process that never ends.
You grind ➡️ you notice patterns ➡️ you try to optimize it ➡️ you get smarter ➡️ you keep grinding.
It's an infinite loop: while (true) — and it never stops.
I remember when I was just starting out in programming and came across the classic “find a number in a sorted array” problem. My first instinct? Brute force. Just loop through the array until you find it.
But something made me pause for a bit. I had just solved a similar problem where the array wasn't sorted.
So why was it sorted this time? That had to mean something.
I thought about it, and after a while it hit me: I could divide the array in half and find the number with far fewer steps.
I had just discovered binary search without even realizing it.
I didn't know it existed until I earned that insight through effort.
And once I found that smarter solution, I never went back to brute force — at least not when binary search was the better fit.
But here's the key: to find that smart solution, I had to work hard first. There's no shortcut to being smart. You don't just "work smart" from the beginning — you build up to it.
Know When Cutting Corners Is a Mistake (Part 1)
Red and Orange
In the photo, you can see different lines drivers might take through a turn. The red and orange lines aren't optimal. The red one is called the tight line, and the orange one is the wide line. Both will cost you time. Not only are they slower, but they also take you off the ideal racing surface, where you'll pick up dust and rubber marbles on your hot tires — which further hurts your lap time.
If you haven't driven a race car before, you might not know it and you'll probably end up taking one of those suboptimal lines, which is totally fine when you're just learning. But as you gain experience and work to improve your skills, you start to notice these things. You begin to understand what the optimal line looks like and how much it actually matters.
Interestingly, context can flip everything:
In wet conditions, that wide line (the orange one) might actually be the fastest line through the corner. That's because the usual racing line becomes slick with rubber buildup, while the wider line offers more grip.
The point?
What looks like the “wrong” line in one situation might be the smartest option in another. And sometimes, what feels like “non-smart” work is actually the smartest move you can make — depending on the context.
Green
The green line represents the optimal racing line and it's significantly faster than the other two. By taking this line, you cover less distance, maintain higher speed, and stay on the cleanest part of the track.
Going deeper into the corner at the start also sets you up to carry much more speed onto the following straight which can gain you massive time over a lap.
This is just a simple example. In reality, there are countless types of corners in racing, and each one demands a unique approach. Mastering them isn't something you figure out in a day — it takes years, often decades of practice, experimentation, and adaptation.
Take F1 drivers, for example. These are some of the smartest-working professionals on the planet. But their “smart” didn't appear overnight — it's the product of a lifetime of hard work, relentless learning, and thousands of hours behind the wheel.
If you're reading this and you're not an F1 driver (which is more than likely), let's be real:
Even if Max Verstappen — the current world champion — sat you down for hours and taught you every “smart” technique he knows, the moment you hit the track in his car, there's a good chance you'd crash in the first corner.
You might be shocked — after all, you knew the smartest way to drive, right? But here's the catch: you haven't put in the hard work to actually develop those skills. And without that work, all the smart advice in the world means nothing.
Purple
And finally, the purple line? That's straight-up cheating. It might look like a clever shortcut — cut the corner, save time — super “smart,” right?
Wrong! You'll get a drive-through penalty and lose 20+ precious seconds.
Sometimes, people try to mask cheating or cutting corners as “smart work” — when in reality, it's just laziness in disguise. I'll dive deeper into that later on.
Know When Cutting Corners Is a Mistake (Part 2)
There's one image that “smart workers” love to share to prove their point. You've probably seen it: people are dragging heavy cubes while another cuts the corners, turns it into a sphere and simply rolls it. Looks genius, right?
But here's what nobody talks about:
The other people are still dragging the cube.
Why? Probably because the client asked for a cube, not a sphere.
And if that's the case… good luck explaining to the client why you “smarter-ed” your way into delivering the wrong shape.
Everyone Wants to Be Smart. Everyone's Time Is Precious. Remember That.
Can you honestly imagine someone who knows a faster, easier, and more effective way to achieve the same or better result… and chooses not to use it?
Let's be real: nobody willingly ignores a smarter option if they truly understand it and trust that it works. Time is valuable to everyone. Whether you're a student, an engineer, a manager, or a CEO — people are always on the lookout for ways to save time, reduce friction, and get better results with less effort.
So here's the thing:
If someone isn't using the “smart” way, there's probably a good reason.
- Maybe they haven't discovered it yet.
- Maybe they're still learning the problem space.
- Maybe they've tried it, and it didn't actually work in their context.
- Or — and this is important — maybe the so-called “smart” solution doesn't align with the real constraints they're dealing with (technical debt, client requirements, legacy systems, regulations, etc.).
Meet Bill the Trucker: Possibly the Hardest-Working Man in the U.S.
Bill used to drive cross-country — from the East Coast to the West Coast — using nothing but paper maps. It was a hassle. He had to plan the entire route himself, with no way of knowing if a road was closed for construction or if a better path existed. Every trip involved a ton of guesswork and manual effort.
Fast forward to today: everyone uses GPS. It's obvious. No one has to explain why it's better — it just is. But let's rewind to the mid-2000s, when GPS first started becoming mainstream.
If you had walked up to Bill back then and said, “Hey Bill, work smarter, not harder,” he'd probably look at you confused. That phrase doesn't mean much in isolation. It's vague. Empty. Borderline patronizing.
But if instead you said: “Hey Bill, there's this new tool that shows your real-time location, automatically picks the fastest route, helps you avoid traffic and roadblocks, and even saves you gas money,” now you've got his attention.
That's how real change happens. That's how GPS went from being an unusual smart idea to one of the most essential tools in our daily lives. Not by telling people to “work smart,” but by showing them something smarter, something concrete, something actually useful.
Hard Work and Smart Work Aren't Opposites — They're Allies
I don't understand why people often treat hard work and smart work as two opposing options—like arch-enemies, no less. Why can't they work together?
Just because someone is working hard doesn't mean they aren't working smart. And working smart doesn't automatically mean it's easy or effortless.
In fact, it's quite the opposite. People who truly know how to work smart have usually invested a bajillion hours of hard work before reaching that level. They understand that continuous effort is necessary to discover even smarter, more efficient ways to achieve their goals.
Hard work and smart work are not enemies — they're partners.
If a task takes me 5 hours, and then I discover a smarter way to do it in just 1 hour, why wouldn't I keep putting in the same hard work for 5 hours—only now being much more productive overall?
Take our buddy Bill the Trucker, for example. He's a hard-working man, and if he finds a shorter route that lets him deliver loads in less time, he can make more deliveries each day. By combining hard work and smart work, Bill significantly maximizes his income and efficiency. And who knows? One day, all that effort and smart decision-making might just help Bill start his own trucking company. Good luck, Bill!
Not All “Smart Work” Is Honest Work
Another problem I have with the phrase “work smart, not hard” is how some people use it to justify laziness and taking illegal shortcuts. There's a massive difference between cheating and working smart — they are completely different things.
Unfortunately, this quote is often abused to mask shortcuts as “smart work,” and I have zero tolerance for that. For example, if someone drives in bus lanes to skip traffic and arrive half an hour earlier, that doesn't make them a good driver (unless it's an emergency, like a life-or-death situation). In fact, they should have their license suspended for months.
We're seeing this kind of behavior more and more nowadays, especially with the rise of AI tools. If you're a software engineer who asks AI to generate code and then blindly copy-pastes it without understanding or optimizing it, you might appear to be working smart. But in reality, it's a shortcut that will likely cost you dearly in the long run when you'll have to deal with technical debt.
My Suggestion
So, what do I suggest instead of handing out vague advice like “work smarter, not harder”?
Start actually showing people how to work smarter. Give them concrete steps, practical tips, or at least some meaningful hints they can latch on.
Trust me, they'll appreciate that far more than being hit with dry, meaningless quotes tossed around without any real context or guidance.
Real value comes from actionable advice — not empty slogans.
You Can't Always Be Smart — And That's Okay
Hard work is essential. There's no job in any field that doesn't require it. Even if you're the smartest person in the room, you still need to put in the effort to move forward, otherwise, you're just standing still.
This applies not only to work but also to hobbies and personal passions. Without dedication and effort, you'll never truly get good at anything.
Most of the time in your career and life, you won't be the smartest person around — and that's perfectly normal. You can't expect to be smart in every situation or rely solely on that.
But hard work? That's completely within your control. It's an attribute you choose to develop and maintain, and it's something you can always rely on.
By committing to hard work, you vastly increase your chances of becoming a smart worker too — because true “smart work” often comes after putting in the hard work first.
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