Why Work More Hours

Those gurus scream:

1. "Work smarter!"
2. "Not longer!"
3. "Yay! Hooray!"

And so, you start thinking:

• "Hey, if I can do my work in 20 minutes, I will complete so much stuff!"
• "Yay! Hooray!"

And what happens?

1. You barely get anything done.
2. You continue Googling for more "shortcut" tricks.
3. Your workload meanwhile piles.

Peep this sha-ding.

The More Hours You Put Into X...

...the better X gets.

• "OH WHAT IN THE MOTHER !@$!@%?!"

That's right: the more hours you put into a project, the better it gets.

• The more hours you play golf, the better you get.
• The more hours you shoot a basketball, the better you get.
• The more hours you solve calculus homework problems, the better you get.

Likewise, the more hours you put into Client Project X, the better Project X gets.

Why?

• We initially come up with one way to accomplish X.
• An hour passes: "I can improve on the idea!"
• An day passes: "I can improve on the idea again!"

And on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

The difference between chessmasters and amateurs has only one distinguishing variable according to Florida's expert on experts (Ericsson): the amount of time devoted to playing chess.

Yes, it's important to work smart; if you're not working smart, you're (1) destroying the potential for the project and (2) draining freakishprecious time.

But:

• Working smart for 20 minutes...
• ...pales in comparison to working smart for 20 minutes X 2 sets
• ...which pales in comparison to working smart for 20 minutes X 4 sets

If you follow the superstars -- the captains of your industry, you'll notice something:

• They devote ridiculous amount of hours working on their crafts.

Being good at what you do takes hard work; there's no Management 2.0 tricks to get around that.

Try this.

Take out a stopwatch:

• Your stopwatch serves as your timecard.
• Clock-in when you work.
• Clock-out when you're not working (e.g., taking breaks, reading websites, etc.).

Get your record time-worked for the day. Then tomorrow, break it. Then break it again on Day 3.

When you're just sitting there and devoting yourself to work while you're on the clock, you start consciously finding tasks to demolish:

• "I've completed Task A."
• "I want to stay on the clock! What else can I complete? Task B!"
• "Done. Task C!"
• "Task D!"

And on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

You then start noticing something:

• The more hours you devote to work, the more things you get done.

IT'S A FREAKING CRAZY RIDICULOUS NOTION NOBODY COULD'VE PREDICTED BUT DANG!

No shortcuts.

Work.

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