Work smarter: 160k a year and an 8 hour work week

​You’ve tried many things. But still, the achievement of your ambition eludes you. And in the search for the secret to a successful career, you come across these four words:

Work smarter, not harder. 

One way you could work smarter is by applying Pareto’s law. It states that 80% of the outputs come from 20% of the inputs. 

A thought experiment: Say I’m a solopreneur. A freelance designer. I work forty hours a week and earn £50k a year. Perhaps there’s a few clients that provide me with the bulk of my work. Applying Pareto’s law, I’d only work with these lucrative clients. Which means I could earn £40k a year, working just 8 hours a week. 

That’s working smarter, not harder. 

But here’s the problem. At this point, I’ll ask myself a question. “What if I worked more, but using the smarter method?” Using the above example: If I went back to a normal work week, but found more clients of a similar pedigree, I could be earning £200k. If I can do that, which will I choose? 8 hours a week and £40k a year? Or 40 hours a week and £200k a year? 

And why not extrapolate to the point of absurdity? What about £160k a year for 8 hours of work per week? How about £800k from a regular 40 hour work week?

Working harder, not smarter, is fine. But to reach the upper tiers, you’ve got to do both. Develop ingenious methods and systems and develop valuable skills, then implement them across your entire working life. 

Discover how to work smarter, then work harder whilst working smarter, and repeat the process ad infinitum.