Since the who’s who of the corporate world is singing praises about hard work, I want to put on record that I agree with them 100%.
But the problem is that we immediately translate ‘hard work’ into 84 hours, 96 hours, or 120 hours a week. So before we do that, let us ask: What is hard work?
Hard work should have only one goal — to create huge value (not just to keep ourselves busy).
And what creates value? It depends on the type of work you do.
Modern knowledge workers (“thinking workers”), which is most of us here on LinkedIn, create value primarily through deep work, i.e., working without interruptions for long periods — typically 30-60 minutes — on mentally demanding tasks.
But that is NOT true for non-knowledge work, e.g., people working in factories, warehouses, etc. Even in office settings, work that is done mechanically without thinking, is not knowledge work.
In non-knowledge work, the more hours you work, the more value you create, unless you are so exhausted that you cause accidents or make mistakes.
But the blunder we are committing is that we are applying the industrial era metric (no. of hours) to knowledge work. For the record, you can’t be mentally sharp for more than 4-5 hours a day when focusing on hard tasks.
So everybody advocating 84 or 96 or 120 hours is thinking like an 18th century industrialist.
But the problem is that we are in 2026. And that is a blunder.
– Rajan