Smart Follows Hard

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 just to figure out what working smart means.
Beginners can’t work smart because they don’t yet know what smart looks like. They have to work hard first, building the pattern recognition that makes smart possible. 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.
Smarter approaches aren’t universal shortcuts, they’re contextual insights uncovered through deep, sustained effort. -Shane Parrish

Don’t worry about hacks and shortcuts and systems and “working smarter.” Especially at first with something brand new.

That just leads to procrastination and stalling. It’s yet another insidious form of the resistance.

Just get in there and get to work.

Smart follows hard.