Tagalog Version (Click Here)
Every weekday we spend an hour or more getting ready for work, an hour or so on the commute, eight hours in the office plus overtime, an hour or more again commuting home, and finally we’re too tired to do anything else aside from eating dinner, watching TV, and browsing Facebook (or social media). We all work hard at our jobs and businesses, so success should be almost guaranteed, right?
Well, not exactly.
Are we working hard?
One day I was checking out some digital artwork online and I came across a quote that I can’t seem to forget.
If you think you’re working hard, think again.
— Maciej Kuciara
Aside from writing and then translating articles like this here on YourWealthyMind, my daily routine also includes streaming on Twitch for a few hours and then sharing articles and digital paintings I’ve made on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. I do this every day except on Sundays and on my half-day breaks every Wednesday and Saturday, I often go out to a quiet coffee shop to read self-improvement and personal finance books, plan my next articles, and think of my next business moves.
Although the digital art stream was a recent addition, I’ve been following that schedule every week since I started writing over two years ago, with no holiday breaks.
I thought I was working hard, but in reality when I actually try to remember the things I do every day, I realize that I slack off most of the time. For every minute actually spent working, I spend maybe two or three playing video games or browsing the internet.
Perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself. You have a lot of important stuff you need to do, but you keep putting it off.
- You SHOULD be finishing that report… right after chatting with your friend on Facebook… and then scrolling down on the newsfeed some more… and more… and more… ad infinitum.
- You SHOULD be compiling and analyzing the data… right after you watch that funny youtube video… and the next one… and the next…
- You SHOULD be preparing tomorrow’s requirements… right after a five minute break… which is now a 10 minute break… which became a 30 minute break…
I certainly experience that often. In fact, at 8pm I took a break from writing this to play a video game on Steam, and before I knew it it was already midnight.
We often THINK we’re working hard because we notice how tired and irritable we are at work and after, but we never notice the time we spend slacking off. It’s usually only when the days ends that we realize we haven’t accomplished much and the deadline for our projects are fast approaching.
This is often true for those of us who are self-employed or those of us who run our own businesses. We get sidetracked by daily distractions and ordinary work that we forget to continue improving ourselves and our careers or businesses. You know, the improvements that will actually snowball into massive success.
While the REAL professionals spend nights and weekends prospecting for new clients and professional partners or thinking about expanding their businesses, most of us only do our regular work and nothing more. That’s a trap we must all learn to avoid.
If we only do what’s ordinary, we’ll only GET what’s ordinary, and if we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll keep getting what we’ve always gotten.
The BEST artists
Remember how I said I create digital art during my spare time? I certainly want to do it professionally and earn money from it. The thing is, by remembering that quote about working hard I realized that while I only draw and stream for a couple of hours at most on my spare time, the REAL professionals do it at least eight hours a day or more, AND they continue studying anatomy, composition, and they continue pushing their boundaries all the time.
For example, while it usually takes me a week and a half to make just ONE full artwork of middling quality, Sakimichan, an artist I admire, posts an amazing artwork every three days or so.
As it turns out, while we spend similar amounts of time on each piece (around 7-10 hours or more), she likely works on her illustrations all day every day. That way, she accomplishes and improves FAR more than I do.
That was a humbling idea. If you think about it, that’s what most of the top level professionals do, things ordinary people aren’t willing to work on. Just imagine the training routines of Olympic athletes. While most of us think we’re training hard if we spend five hours a week at the gym, the top athletes likely keep training five hours a day or more.
While we shouldn’t work ourselves to death, we must always continue to remind ourselves to do something productive. The Pareto principle applies to everything in our lives. The most important 20% of what we do brings us 80% of our results, and the rest of our activities are nearly useless. We must learn to allocate that 80% into something more useful.
In any case, I’ll leave you with one final idea that’s worth remembering.
Winners almost always do what they think is the most productive thing possible at every given moment; losers almost never do.
— Tom Hopkins
By the way, we have a few more articles on productivity that you might want to read now. Click on the links below to check them out and learn something new!