Strategies For Success

In the readings “Work Hard or Work Smart”, “The Myth of Multitasking” and “10,000 Hours for Success” they all make valid points about being successful and how to achieve success.  In article number one “Work Hard or Smart” written by Tom Weber he says “It is to work both hard and smart”.  I had never really thought of it like that.  I always just heard work hard and do your best, but never to work smart.  This concept is pretty eye opening to me because all my life my parents have both worked very hard, but never really progressed in their jobs.  Working smart can change this, finding new ways to do things and learning new technology can take some of the load off so you don’t have to work as hard.  Yet at the same time only working smart won’t get you as far as working smart and hard.  In the second article “The Myth of Multitasking” it explains that multitasking is viewed as a good thing in our culture but it’s actually not, “Dave Crenshaw argues that the most common kind of multitasking doesn't boost productivity—it slows you down”.  This quote is also a new concept to me because in my mind the more things you got done the better off you were.  Granted, if the work you were doing was of decent quality.  This article looks at multitasking from a business perspective, but applying it to my life I still find it to be true.  If you’re doing too many tasks at once you can’t give the proper attention to them all.  The last but not least article “10,000 Hours for Success” states that to be exceptionally successful at something you must dedicate 10,000 hours of your time to it, which is over a decade.   The writer of this article states “if you examine the greatest athletes, entrepreneurs, musicians and scientists you will notice they only emerged after spending at least three hours a day for ten years practicing.”  I agree with this statement, but disagree that someone who has spent 9,000 hours would be less successful.  Some people just have a natural talent for things and don’t have to work as hard as everyone else, most especially some athletes.  Looking at this article from a student’s point of view I see class isn’t just the only part that goes into learning, putting in the work outside of class is what will grantee success in that class.  Looking at all of these articles side by side they all give different strategies for success in all aspects of life, and I agree with all three and plan on implementing them to my own life.