Many of my friends in highschool thought outsmarting monotonous work was done by figuring out how to not have to do the work. Practicing the same math formula was dumb to them, so they used the odd number answers in the back of the book and split up the even number answers among one another to lighten the load.
The reality of it is the actions they took were making them less smart. When it comes to the grunt work of any industry, the only way to outsmart it is by doing it so many times that it becomes easy, it becomes quick, and, if you’re really smart, you’ll find a better way of doing it.
Outsmarting an activity is about making it better, not about avoidance.
In the case of the math-adverse friends, they’ll never learn how to make the formula better, shorter, stronger because they’ve never invested the time in learning how it works to start.
Conquering the monotonous is a privilege, it’s also a gateway, not to showing your peers that you can handle the bigger more dynamic items that life and work have, but that you can construct a wear resistant foundation, a tight-knit understanding of how something simple works.
I’ve found that improving the simple is often more difficult (and rewarding) than improving the big and complex.
Stay Positive & Learn To Love The Grunt Work
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