How Do You Prepare to Work Hard and Be Effective?

A billion years ago (I might be exaggerating a bit), I sat at a computer, stumped. My boss had assigned me this challenging project three days before a customer visit. I had just one day remaining. I had a green-and-white listing of the code next to me on my left, and my diet soda on my right.

My boss walked up and asked, “You done yet?”

I shook my head. “Not a chance. I don’t think I can even get it right for tomorrow.”

“Work harder, then.”

That was it. I’d banged my head against this code for too long to put up with that kind of remark. In my typical frank-and-direct fashion, I said, “Then you should have given it to me last week or the week before. I asked for other people to help me, and you said no. Or you could have given me the training I asked for months ago. If this is really important, you have many alternatives to help me finish the work faster. But saying, ‘Work harder?’ No. You can say that, but that’s not effective.”

He shook his head as he walked away.

I did not finish the project. And my coward of a boss left me to discuss why I hadn’t finished the work with the customer.

All that work—and I was not effective.

Working hard is not enough. We need to be effective in our hard work. And that often means we need to prepare.

Preparation for Effective Work Depends on the Context

I have extensive experience in several kinds of effective hard work: software product development, management and leadership, and writing. While each activity requires different skills, there are some principles common to each of them:

Getting enough training and education. If we know how to do the work, we can work hard and work effectively.
Building a community of support for this hard work. I like being able to bounce ideas off people, whether in speaking or writing. When other people question my assumptions, I learn from those questions.
Creating options for how to start, continue, and end. You know how much I like the Rule of Three. (See When Can You Recognize and Avoid the Trap of Either/Or Thinking? for more details.)

If your context is different, you might need different principles.

But these principles allow me to assess how I can start and continue to work hard, effectively.

Assess Choices

I’ve learned a lot about how to get enough training and learning. Part of my solution is to buy and read books. But just reading doesn’t always offer me enough information. That’s when I take workshops. I specifically mean a workshop, not just a class. I expect to work in a workshop. A class might not require me to work. And that’s not enough for me to learn so I can be effective as I work. You might be different.

I realize I won’t be as speedy as I’d like while I’m learning, but as long as I’m learning, I can be more effective.

Sometimes, I need a new community of support so I can be effective. In that long-ago company, if my boss had made any decision about the project portfolio, other people would have been available to work with me and be part of my support system.

As for options as I proceed, I have to be careful not to confuse perseverance and grit with the sunk cost fallacy. (See When Can You Rethink A Decision?)

You don’t need to work the way I did, all those years ago. You can work hard and be effective.

Announcements…

If you also like to learn from reading books, Successful Independent Consulting is in a storybundle, just for two weeks. See the 2023 Write Stuff Storybundle.

And, I have a new self-study class (with optional coaching from me): Write a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts.

Preparation for Effective Work Depends on the Context

Assess Choices

Announcements…

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