It’s a common myth in American culture that hard work pays off. We’re told from a very young age that if we want success in life, we’re going to have to struggle for it. Often times this lifestyle encompasses other less-than-optimal attitudes like choosing to compete and trading invaluable resources like time and health for lesser resources like money or temporary success.
I’m definitely a victim of this mindset. When I first started this website, I can remember spending upwards of 12 hours a day optimizing and tweaking anything and everything I could get my hands on. And don’t get me wrong – I learned a lot – but I got burned out fast.
After a few months of spending way more time than I should have blogging, I just couldn’t stand it anymore. You’ll notice that, in the archives for example, June of 2011 only has two entries. I simply got tired of spending so much time doing it so I had to take a break.
I can hear you thinking: “But you wouldn’t have the results you have now if you didn’t work so hard.”
It’s true, hard work does generate results. But it’s not the most intelligent way of achieving things. Working really hard at something will definitely yield progress, but the problem is that that progress often comes at the cost of other parts of your life. You can bet I didn’t have much of a social life during that period, and my inner stillness was very lacking with all the crap I was focusing on doing all the time.
But what if there was a way to generate the same excellent results you’re used to without sacrificing your free time or mental health? Luckily, there is. This is essentially the illegitimate, lesser known (but smarter) offspring of the “work smart, not hard” cliché:
Don’t Work Hard; Instead Work Consistently
Consistent effort is what will produce results in your life. Marathon workaholic sessions will do little more than frustrate you in the long run. Sure, you may get some short-term results, as I mentioned, but you are sacrificing a whole heck of a lot for little overall reward.
Additionally, unless you take the extreme approach of working really hard AND really consistently at the same time (which will kill you), you’ll actually get much more results from consistent effort.
For example, right now I get up at 10 in the morning and work on various website related activities until about 4pm. That gives me a solid 6 hours, 5 days a week to spend on generating traffic, creating awesome content, and reaching out to my readers (that’s you!).
I find it much easier to balance this time when I have a regular schedule. Back when I was doing marathon sessions, I would often get sidetracked on an obscure programming problem and spend 12 hours achieving nothing but frustration.
When I have a specific timeline to follow, I tend to focus on more effective tasks, yielding greater results. Plus, I avoid the burnout that inevitably occurs if I spend too much time focusing on one thing.
And this all is part of a bigger concept about finding balance.
Finding Balance in Your Life with Work
Part of my “never work hard” paradigm is that life should be easy. If you find that work is a complete drag for you, chances are the problem is manifesting from one of two things:
Your work isn’t in tune with who you are and what you love OR you haven’t achieved balance between your life and work.
The former is the subject of another article, but the latter can be addressed here.
There are a lot of different aspects to our lives as human beings. We can arbitrarily split that into as many sections as we want, but I’m going to mention a few main ones:
- Work (whatever you do to keep busy and pay the bills)
- Play (anything you do for fun)
- Social (family, friends, events, etc.)
- Health (duh)
- Inner (meditation, introspection, joy)
If you focus too much on any one area, all of the other areas will suffer. Likewise, if you don’t focus enough on one area, everything else will degrade too.
When we do lots of really hard work, our natural life balance starts becoming skewed. If you’ve ever worked late hours in the office for a week or more straight and you know what I’m saying. All of the other areas (play, social, health, inner) take a big hit at the expense of one (work).
Repeat this pattern long enough and you’ll end up with a very unbalanced and unhappy life.
The solution? Create your life in such a way that you never have to work hard again. Being consistent will give you plenty of results, and as a bonus you get to keep your sanity. 
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Hey Fred, I love this post! You’re definitely making a lot of sense and this pumped me up! lol I was exactly like you. I made my own site and spent countless hours trying out new plugins and stuff like that and I got so into it but I could have spent more time doing other important things as well. I definitely learned a lot from it tho.
I like this “Don’t Work Hard; Instead Work Consistently”. Totally with you on this one! Success has a lot to do with consistency. What we did today, we have to do tomorrow. We can’t just do something good now and do another one next week. We have to be consistent.
Thanks for the inspiration! Keep it up!
Thanks Pj!
Man, I spent so much time messing with different plug-ins and various WordPress options until I realized that I can get rid of about 90% others and have a faster running site. I still use a few plug-ins, but only if they’re absolutely essential. The funny thing is I coded my own site from scratch using HTML and CSS before I learned about WordPress. Talk about a waste of time! But I did learn a lot about how things on the Internet work for my programming experience. And besides, I was a Computer Science major back then anyway so it was good practice.
I’ve always had an aversion to hard work, I’ll be the first to admit it. So I was delighted when I learned I could get results not working hard, but simply from working consistently. It makes a lot more sense, not only for our productivity, but mostly for our sanity.
Hope to see you around here again!
Ha, Fred I tried doing the same thing when building Sunrise Soul. I started coding it myself, spent ridiculous hours on it for 6 weeks, then used a wordpress template and had it up within hours. Amazing.
It’s all that newfangled technology, man. Gotta love it.
Ha ha… I’m heeeere! also sat up all night clicking refresh!
Fred! you are so right in encouraging balance. I am a crazy hard worker… although as you said, sometimes there have been days (weeks) where I have farted around and at the end of it have been worn out and accomplished sweet jack Sh$%!t.
I firmly believe that we MUST Balance our activities by planning. If you don’t plan your activities you can be all over the place. I find with a list of things to do, I can bang them off and accomplish three times more than with no plan.
I kinda thought about this last year that I had spent a good portion of the year with head in laptop when I should have been having a bit more fun.
glad I’m not the only one.
talk soon
Jayne
Haha, they should add that to the DSM-IV – “head in laptop syndrome”. It strikes hard, fast, it takes a lot of will to overcome!
Don’t feel bad, I’ve spent months (years) farting around doing precious little. Of course, I did enjoy myself so that is something. But, regardless of my own tendencies, I’m not advertising NO work here – just consistent work.
I think we can all agree that super hard work just plain sucks!
About the list – I do something like that… with a twist. I tend to have a “schedule” of things that I do on regular basis. This includes working on this website, exercise, and meditation. The schedule insurers that I get these things done on a regular basis. They’re things that I might not do otherwise if I didn’t make myself do them. There are also things that are – more than anything else – moving my life forward in helping me grow.
After that, I’m pretty much free to do whatever I want to do. I love that spontaneous free time – without it I couldn’t function. To do things that may come up that are neither scheduled nor free time, I have a whiteboard where I write down various tasks that I need to complete on whatever day.
Maybe I’ll write a post about this, it seems to work well for accomplishing things while having lots of free sometime. Thanks for the inspiration!
Hey Fred,
Blogger burnout is common and I too have felt the repercussions of it. I was wondering if you were going to make it back when you took your blogging break.
Hard work for short bursts is OK but as a long term strategy it sucks.
I enjoy working more than anything else so hard work doesn’t really bother me that much. I actually enjoy it.
To each their own though. I know smart successful people that never lift a finger, they get others to work hard for them. Of course they $$pay for it.
That’s an interesting perspective, Justin. I wrote something about hard work versus consistent work on my Facebook page and some people said they really enjoy hard work.
I think this is one of those things where we have to create our life around our own innate proclivities. All’s I could do is preach what works for me. If you’re one of those folks who really enjoys hard work then go get it! Me, I enjoy long naps and lazy Sundays (today is definitely a lazy Sunday).
I’m so glad I came back. I think the break did me a lot of good. It basically taught me what is contained within this article – that, exactly as you said, hard work is okay for short bursts but sucks is a long-term strategy.
Actually, I’m going to quote you with that on Twitter.
I actually learned the same lesson the same way: I got a bit overboard with working on my blog when I launched it. It’s ironic how it’s actually much more productive to work at a slower pace, but keep it consistent. It’s also much more fun!
Hey Agota – thanks for the comment.
That’s funny. Especially strange how to get more productivity from simple, consistent work.
I can’t agree enough about the fun aspect.
Oh, and on the same note, it helped me to realize that workaholism actually makes you a vibrational mismatch for goals like financial freedom. I mean, it doesn’t make sense from LoA perspective to put out a vibe which basically says “I’m not there yet, I had to work hard” (since the hard work crazes are usually inspired by frustration that we don’t have results yet) when you want to enjoy something with “Money come easily and effortlessly while I drink coctails on the beach” and “I love my work!” vibe. I’m still amazed that it takes so much discipline to allow myself to relax, though
This is SO true. Why would we work really hard if we already were really want to be? Many people would say, “Obviously we aren’t where we want to be… otherwise we would be working so hard!” But this creates, as you said, that vibrational mismatch. If are always constantly working and striving, then we’re going to attract more work striving in turn. On the other hand, if we can turn that hard work into something that’s fun AND productive, will attract more fun and productivity.
It’s simple when you really think about it.
By the way, what’s your website?
“When at work, work!” – Brian Tracy
This is I think an important lesson, you are right, it isn’t the time you put in, you need to find balance. But if you do decide to work 8 hours, work all 8 hours and take the other 16 hours off and spend the rest of the time on the other important parts of your life.
Great article fred!
Absolutely Daniel.
For some of us it’s hard to turn off that work attitude when we get home. By learning to work when it’s time to work, and play when it’s time to play, we can become a lot more balanced and healthy.
By the way, thanks for leaving a comment. I’ll come over and see what your site is all about.
Hey Fred I couldn’t agree more. Consistency is definitely the answer. It is really easy when you are self employed to go hell for leather and burn out with a sprint instead of a focused, steady marathon.
I never work hard. I work a lot because I’m a workaholic who needs no WA meetings as I enjoy it and I work as consistently and hopefully as smart as my little brain can muster.
Of course this choice is not always possible when you work for a boss who has given you a specific deadline, (now to Make Fred earn his keep!) – I’m interested in your advice for those folks?
Hell for leather, isn’t that a Judas Priest song?! Woo hoo!
As for your question – it’s obvious! Quit.
Haha, but really, in that situation sometimes the only thing you can do is work hard. Sometimes really hard. Because of that, I recommend getting out of such situations as soon as possible. Find a new job that is more aligned with how you think life should be, or stop the whole working-for-other-people being go into business with yourself.
I’m not going to pull a Steve Pavlina here and recommend you quit right away with no backup plan, but decide right now to find something that’s coherent with your lifestyle and work towards it progressively, consistently, and not too hard.
‘Woo hoo?’ Fred? “Woo hoo?…I prefer Sol’s ‘Woof!’
Anyhoo you have passed the ‘test’ Grasshopper. I would have said the same thing….Woof!
Sweet!
By the way, woof is what puppies do. I’d be more likely to RAWR.
Muahaha.
Rawr.
Like a chihauhahu – rawr.
*insert picture of chihahuhahi here*
This was not meant to insult your manly pride, of course.
Chihauhahus do not rawr. They don’t even woof. For gods sake they barely even “erf!”
This is simply not applicable. Good day I said!
Hah.
Then you don’t know Norwegian society. Hard work is the only way here. If you try to tell them ‘What about the woman that works 6 hours overtime and isn’t rich yet?’ they’ll just snort and call it bull.
Indeed, for it is unenlightened and childish to want to escape the 9 – 5 grind. A job is your only solution.
Woof.
Talk to Steve Pavlina about that one (this article). He may be enlightened or childish, but he’s making tens of thousands of dollars a month without grinding for a penny of it.
The real question is, do you see yourself being clever enough to do the same thing?
I know my answer. What’s yours?
I see my sarcasm went undected. It usually does in the interwebs. I blame electronic text.
Of course I am clever enough to do the same thing. It’s what I am practically trying to do – making a living wirting about what I love (and what I don’t).
The REAL question is: do I believe deep down inside that I can do it, tortoise that I am?
After I wrote my response, I was half-thinking you are being sarcastic. Stupid interwebz.
And that’s a good question. I think the answer determines most people’s success.
Seriously, either you’re sarcastic or not.
I’ve been through Dante’s Inferno and back, and I still think that sucess is a totally personal thing. Blogging as an example. I’d say quality over quantity.
I think the quality of writing matters a lot. A lot, like most people underestimate it.
For the most part, people are going to be saying the same thing about any given subject. They may disagree, but it’s usually the same crap.
Like gay marriage. If you’re for it, you have various reasons. If you’re against it, you have various reasons. But after a while you start seeing patterns in both sides.
It’s really hard to be original, but what you can do is express those same ideas more vividly and clearly (and entertainingly) then someone else.
Fred, I thought you’d be interested in Steve Pavlina’s most recent blog post, which, coincidentally enough, is on the subject of hard work:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2011/09/arbeit-macht-frei/
Interesting, I’ll check it out. I’ll reply back here once I read it.
What an awesome post he had. I agree with pretty much everything.
On the superficial level, it may appear that he’s saying “hard work rocks” and I’m saying “hard work sucks”, but this isn’t really the case.
I’m saying that working so hard that you burn yourself out as a bad idea, while he’s saying that we should work intelligently with something that we’re driven to do to get results.
There’s probably a small amount of difference, and that I favor more time being spent on inner work, whereas Steve is probably more of a go-getter, but it looks like we’re both exactly where we want to be.
Works for me.
Great message Fred and one I continuously tell everyone who asks me.
“How do you get the results Adrienne?” Consistency is the key my friends, you have to be consistent.
I’m not talking about doing the work for one week or even one month and expect great results. Be consistent with what you are doing and it will pay off. You have to do the work anyway right?
Couldn’t have said that better myself Fred. Thanks for this wake up call!
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne.
True enough, I’d say one year might almost be an understatement! Although I’ve only been putting the consistent principle to the site for a couple months now, and that’s where I’ve had my greatest growth.
if I would have were consistently the entire 9-10 months this blog is an online… man. Talk about results!
Hi Fred,
This was one heck of an AWESOME post. It’s always more meaningful to learn about worklife balance when someone is telling their story about how it affected them.
I saw your tweet from Justin about the topic and thought it was very appropriate as well. It’s better to plan for the marathon than for the burnout. Maybe that’s why all the great bloggers have used that analogy.
I’m glad you are back at it and writing about cool things like video games
I’ll have to have you as a guest on my blog soon.
Bryce
Thanks Bryce, that means a lot.
As cool as short distance races could be, you’re going to get a lot farther if you go with the marathon. Just look at the turtle versus the hare!
I’d love to do a guest post for balancedworklife. I’ve actually been a guest posting mood lately… I’ll contact you on that one.
Hi Fred, I’ve tweeted several of your article but I haven’t had a chance to comment and when I saw this article I thought it was a great idea to maybe say hello for the first time. I’ve been working with the same company now for about 4 years and it’s my real first career after college.
From my experience society is crazy and I have no idea how we got to the 5 day 9 hour work week. Society seems to have placed this unrealistic emphasis on owning materialistic items it’s actually managed to take over our life and make us work and work and work.
I cannot stand working 5 days a week and I’m so excited about blog engage taking me to the level where I’m self-employed. I know it’s ironic and I’ll most likely work 5 days a week still but I will be doing it because I want to. I want to comment on blogs, and meet new people and share the twitter love. I want to do this type of marketing for a living and this is my goal.
First of all, thanks for tweeting my stuff. You rock!
I think the whole full time 9-5 gig is a bit much myself. And it’s not that I’m afraid of work. If I were doing something like, say, growing my own food, and I had to work 12 hours a day all week I’d gladly do it. There’s just a disconnect for me in the whole employer-employee relationship.
I could do just fine on $1000 a month, and when I get this blog turning that much it’s going to be awesome. It looks like we share the same goals. I wish you all the luck in the world. I visited your site couple times but I’m going to go ahead and go over right now.
Take care.
Hi Fred, I’ve made a few mistakes since graduating from college that have strapped me into monthly payments so I’m rather stuck. I have set my goals and created a plan, within two years I will be self-employed. In exactly two years I will done paying off my 2009 SUV and my OASP which is an education loan will also be paid off.
Once these two financial obligations are paid off I will be in the perfect position to work on my own.
That is awesome, Brian.
I got myself stuck with a little credit card debt so I’m paying that off monthly as well. Amazing how fast those things can add up. I actually just got a job there really going to enjoy today. I start on the 8th of October and I can’t wait!
I’m pretty much just getting it to pay off the credit card and get some extra cash. It’s part time so I can still focus on my website and creating content for everyone to read.
Being debt-free is a powerful thing. Here here!
Hi Fred,
Good post! I’m in agreement and my latest post (Hard Work Isn’t Necessarily the answer) addresses the same issue. Hard work guarantees only that you worked hard.
Riley
Totally. I’ll go over and read it right now.
Thanks for commenting!
Hey Fred, it’s me – yourself – commenting on your post to see if Reply me works. La la la…
That’s cool. Here’s my reply: I’m just testing this thing!
No Fred I checked it and it definitely doesn’t work.
Yes it does Pea. Get a grip.
No.
Lol! I completely forgot I even put those there. I’m just going to leave them for fun.
By the way, did you receive an e-mail saying there was a response to your reply?
Hi Fred,
How do you keep yourself consistent? You enjoy your work, plain and simple! People who do it for the wrong reason will get way too tired and burned out. They may also die early and for a good reason, who would want to live in a way that literally sucks life out of you? I love your blog and thanks for sharing, but I will disagree here and say that you got burned out not because you put too much work into it in the beginning. You got burned out because you put in all that work for the wrong reason. Perhaps, you wanted to succeed and felt like you needed to keep writing to make it happen. Perhaps, in the back of your mind you were thinking that you “needed” to make it work. So maybe you started the blog because you wanted to share, but if when you sat down at your computer, your thought was I must do this now, feeling like that will drain your energy and enthusiasm. Then when you backed off, you were like oh hello, I actually wanna do this because this is fun
Lol, that may be true Lena. I have a vastly different view of blogging now that I’m doing it consistently than when I first started. So much so that the views aren’t even remotely compatible. I think the biggest change that’s occurred is that I really have been building relationships with people. That’s probably my favorite part of it actually. There’s a lot of cool people doing this stuff, and it’s really cool to talk to them on a regular basis.
Back then there was definitely a sense of “needing” to get it done, especially towards the end. Now I tend to have a lot more fun with my posts, like the “why life is not a video game” series. Those are just plain fun to write.
By the way, I visited your site yesterday and was wondering when you’re going to release a new post. How long are you going to keep us waiting?!
Fred, the number of your early blog posts is truly mind boggling. I wish I could increase the number of my blog posts, but when I sit down to write, like I did earlier today, if I don’t feel VERY inspired, it’s hard to get myself to sit still to do it and if I actually have a week full of reading sessions, forget it! Perhaps, I’m doing it for the wrong reason or something
Lol, I’m sure you’ll be fine. I actually wrote a guest article earlier about being a good blogger. You don’t have to write posts every day – or even multiple times a day as I used to do – just keep it consistent. Which is, ironically, the theme of this article too!
You could even do a bi weekly post. Whatever it is, just stick to the same plan so your readers can know when to expect your articles.
I recently in formally switched to a 2-post-a-week schedule, usually on Sunday and Wednesday for traffic reasons. A friend and I were driving past a church with lots of people standing outside it last night. I realized it was Wednesday, and so their meeting because churches usually meet on Sundays and Wednesdays. Then I realized that’s also when I released my posts. I don’t know that significant or not, but it was a funny realization.
Take care, and looking forward to more from you (damn reading sessions!).
Fred,
Consistency is definitely very important..Most people work hard their whole life but they are switching careers and are not consistent with one single goal..Success compounds over time if you know exactly what you want out of life.You will attract the right people and circumstances as well….You don’t have to be a 24/7 workaholic…
Thanks for sharing
Cheers,
Nabil
That’s a good point I didn’t cover here: solidarity of purpose.
Heck, even if we’re completely consistent with our work, we are going to do much if we keep throwing that consistency all over the place.
Sounds like a new article…
Thanks for the comment Nabil.
Hi Fred,
The way you described your early blogging days sounded like you are referring to me. There seems to be an endless streak of activities that needs to be done at this early stage of blogging. I am definitely going through that phase right now. In fact, I wish I had more than 24hrs a day.
I believe that it boils down to doing what we truly love and all. Right now, I can spend forever blogging because I love it so much. It brings me great joy. The true test will come in about 6 months when I can check if I am still able to produce the same output as when I first started. You can hold me accountable for that.
I agree with Justin’s comments about been consistently hard working as long as it is work in your passion areas. But you have also cautioned against burn out and ignoring other aspects of our life. At the end of the day, we really need to prioritize and ensure that every aspect of our lives are taken care of. Otherwise we are the ultimate ones to suffer when our loved ones suffer.
Cheers
Jimmy, absolutely.
Oddly enough, it was around the six-month mark for me that I began to get burned out. I just sit and have a way of implementing blogging sustainably within my life. Before then, it was pretty much all or nothing with regards to website. Some days I’d sit there forever working on things, and other days I wouldn’t touch it. It’s actually like guitar when I used to play it. I used to sit there for hours upon hours and practice, but eventually I got so sick of it that I didn’t want to play anymore.
That’s also one of the most important things – those “other people”. When we’re sitting all day in front of the computer, the people around us tend to get ignored. No fun for them, and eventually no fun for us either.
Having lots of passion for something can actually make it even harder to keep balance. Lately, I’ve been wanting to keep doing blogging activities even after ~4pm. It can take some serious effort to rip me a computer sometimes! But after I take a break for a few minutes, I’m ready to move onto something else. It’s just that initial quitting phase that is hard.
Take it easy Jimmy. Oh I will hold you very accountable!
Actually, I DO have a purpose for visiting other than leaving silliness! I just found your email Fred. Thank you and many apologies for the delay and I shall get round to answering it forthwith.
Lol, Pea. I got the response today. Yes I – REALLY – want to know why you are called Pea! and I did feel like you’re all caps was KIND OF LIKE YELLING! But I knew that you were too peaceful to actually yell (at least at me – what did I do?!) so I wasn’t worried about it.
You said your profession required you to roam around the world? What did you do, and are they hiring?
Haha, see ya!
Don’t work hard because you won’t get to much satisfaction instead work wisely. Try to schedule your task in a certain amount of time and channel all your effort into this task.
Absolutely. Satisfaction is key. Work smart, work wisely, and most of all – work consistently!
Thanks for the post Fred! This is so true! As a new blogger, everyday I wake up and I’m starting to think “What should I do write?” “How can I increase the traffic?” “Where can I learn more?”
And there’s so much work to do. I’m always overwhelmed. Indeed to run a blog requires a lot of hard work but we should treat it as a long term process.
‘Constant’ is the key. You’ve inspired me! Thanks again!
Hey Dan. What you mentioned is absolutely true. Don’t worry though! It will get better.
After awhile, you get your site and everything the way you want it, and you know what to devote yourself to each day, so the whole process becomes streamlined and easy.
Of course, getting there takes a lot of effort. And dare I say, even some hard work!
Thanks for commenting.
[...] is a follow-up sort-of related post to Fred Tracy’s article on hard work. He states that it never pays off, meaning that elongated work-a-holic sessions are fruitless. [...]
I’m my alter ego today! I burnt out as a teacher because I just went to work and slept, and that was it. I was very very ill, and I know a lot of other people who are exactly the same.
But it’s a choice isn’t it? No one is forcing you to take a job that makes you work that hard, and, no bugger else is going to tell you to take it easy!
I see it as a low self esteem thing – whereby you don’t think it’s worth looking after yourself properly so you just do more work.
You just went to work and slept? How did you get away with that one?!
It’s absolutely a choice. I think you’re right when you say it’s a self-esteem type thing, or a lease that it’s related. I’m a big proponent of the “me first” policy. Not because I’m particularly selfish, but because you have to take care of yourself before you can help anyone else. No one is more interested in your own well-being than, well, you. So take care of yourself!
Haha, oops, I meant work, home, sleep, and repeat!
You’re exactly right! I know a lot of people who make themselves martyrs to other people and to work, in the mistaken belief that that makes them hard working or whatever.
That’s true! The problem is that society treats people who work harder and for longer hours (even if they don’t provide valuable results) much better than those, who work less (even if the level of results is the same). “Look at him. He works from dawn till dusk! And you spend only 5 hours working per day!” My colleagues often chide me for when I work less hours than they do (I don’t have fixed schedule at my work). They ask me: “What are you doing if not working?” I say: “I just live”. But it seems like they don’t get it…
PS: Hi, Fred! Found your website via Steve Pavlina’s forums. The design is great. And this post has definitely caught my attention. Bookmarked it as it seems a good place to stay.
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