How to Work Hard

“There are three ingredients in great work: natural ability, practice, and effort. You can do pretty well with just two, but to do the best work you need all three: you need great natural ability and to have practiced a lot and to be trying very hard. Bill Gates, for example, was among the smartest people in business in his era, but he was also among the hardest working. 'I never took a day off in my twenties,' he said. 'Not one.' It was similar with Lionel Messi. P. G.”— Paul Graham

Philosophy & Reasoning · Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management

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Talent, practice, effort: all three required

“There's a faint xor between talent and hard work. It comes partly from popular culture, where it seems to run very deep, and partly from the fact that the outliers are so rare. If great talent and great drive are both rare, then people with both are rare squared. Most people you meet who have a lot of one will have less of the other. But you'll need both if you want to be an outlier yourself.”— Paul Graham

Psychology & Behavior · Philosophy & Reasoning

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Outliers are rare squared: talent AND drive

“The only way to find the limit is by crossing it. Cultivate a sensitivity to the quality of the work you're doing, and then you'll notice if it decreases because you're working too hard. Honesty is critical here, in both directions: you have to notice when you're being lazy, but also when you're working too hard. And if you think there's something admirable about working too hard, get that idea out of your head.”— Paul Graham

Operations & Execution · Psychology & Behavior

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Cross limit to find it; honesty both ways

“The best test of whether it's worthwhile to work on something is whether you find it interesting. That may sound like a dangerously subjective measure, but it's probably the most accurate one you're going to get. You're the one working on the stuff. Who's in a better position than you to judge whether it's important, and what's a better predictor of its importance than whether it's interesting? For this test to work, though, you have to be honest with yourself.”— Paul Graham

Strategy & Decision Making · Psychology & Behavior

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Interest = best proxy for importance

“What I've learned since I was a kid is how to work toward goals that are neither clearly defined nor externally imposed. The most basic level of which is simply to feel you should be working without anyone telling you to. Now, when I'm not working hard, alarm bells go off. I can't be sure I'm getting anywhere when I'm working hard, but I can be sure I'm getting nowhere when I'm not, and it feels awful.”— Paul Graham

Psychology & Behavior · Leadership & Management

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Internal alarm bells replace external pressure