If you've ever watched the cartoon "DuckTales", you know one of Scrooge McDuck's favorite sayings was "work smarter, not harder". Though he's a cartoon duck, he's still wise. There are times when only more time and/or effort will get something done, but there are very often things we can do to improve the situation so it can be achieved in an easier way.
An example from my company: When I started there 12 years ago, the presentations for our monthly management review meetings were done on transparencies. Yes, you read that right. This meeting routinely had over 100 pages of presentations. No only was this expensive (we went thought boxes of transparencies like crazy!), it was incredibly wasteful. The charts all had to be redone every month, so each transparency was used once and thrown away. If there was a typo on a transparency, it was trashed and a new one made. I and others actively campaigned for a digital projector. Once it was purchased, guess which was the first team to use PowerPoint for their presentation? Oh my goodness, so much less wasteful and faster.
This is a small example, but things like this are common in both our personal and professional lives. We'd all be well advised to be like Scrooge McDuck and stay on the lookout for ways to "work smarter, not harder".
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