Is Working Hard Good Enough?

In Don’t Chase the Cat: Determining When Interruptions Are Worthwhile from Cool Cat Teacher Blog by coolcatteacher@gmail.com, Victoria A Davis, Cool Cat Teacher  shares,

“Just like working hard at pointless work does not bring success — working hard at pointless conversations doesn’t make successful relationships.”

This really made sense to me and if you have time, please go read her whole article! It is motivating and inspiring!

My husband and I call pointless work as “spinning our wheels.”

Too many times I’m caught doing things and I guess I’m a slow learning because sometimes it takes me a while to stop and think, “Why am I doing this? What is the purpose?”

Many times, I do something because that is always the way I’ve done it and I hate it. So, why not think of a different way to do it?

For example, I used to clean house on Saturdays and spend hours doing this, whining the whole time. Then I decided that there had to be a better way. I wrote a list of all the regular cleaning that I do and spread it out over 2 weeks. Some things I needed to do every week, some only every other week, and some every day. By doing this, I’m only spending about an hour each day doing something I hate but I’m getting more accomplished than when I save it all for one day! At first I felt guilty that I wasn’t spending hours cleaning because I didn’t feel like I was working hard enough. Then I realized that working hard enough doesn’t mean the length of time but the quality of work involved. I was doing much better work this way than the old way. So, what I first thought was “hard work” was not only not efficient but it also wasn’t effective!

So now, after reading this article, I am going to be more aware of what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. What is the purpose of what I’m doing? Am I doing it out of habit or does it have real meaning?

I think this is important for students to learn this also. I feel that students especially have trouble deciding why they act the way they do. Sometimes their body acts before their mind does or vice versa. It would be good for them to practice this mindfulness and it might help them be more successful in the things they do.

How do you feel about working hard? Please share?