Hard work is not enough to take you all the way to the top. At a certain point, you look around and realise everyone is surely working hard. At a certain level, expertise and hard work just become the expectation, and will not help you up the ladder.

Sharon Kiconco, a program coordinator at Plan Rwanda says hard work is still very important but simply waiting for someone to pick up on it is detrimental, this engrained lesson is often incorrect.

"It doesn’t matter if no one recognises what you are doing. To translate that effort into promotions and advancement is what matters, especially in a changed world of work.”

She notes that hard work alone typically goes unnoticed after a certain point, because everyone around you is working at or about the same level. If you don’t draw attention to yourself in other ways, it’s easy to fade into the background.

Robert Mugabo a student at African Leadership University says that if you want to achieve extraordinary success in life, you need to stop buying into the myth that hard work is key. You have to stop working hard blindly.

Mugabo says when you try to do a million things; you make only millimetres of progress. But when you focus on doing only the essentials, you make significant progress; you don’t want to spread your effort too thin and try to focus on everything.

Instead, you want to focus and put all your energy and effort into what matters most. Work on that and you will create results and success by leaps and bounds, he suggests.

The following are tips on how to work smart;

Be aware of the work you do

According to Joshua Twahirwa, a master’s student in International Business Law, before you work on your tasks or projects, ask yourself if they are important and are going to get you the results you desire.

If the answer is yes, then go ahead and do it. But if your answer is no, then you need to focus on getting the vital few done first, he says.

Eliminate the trivial many

He adds that another tip to help you create better results and achieve greater success in what you do is to get rid of the less important.

The problem with most people is that they don’t learn to get rid of, eliminate, or outsource the less important work. They think they have time or that if they don’t do it, nobody is going to get it done, he explains.

"This is why most people are stuck and are not getting ahead. They spend most of their time working on the trivial many rather than putting in more effort to work on the vital few. If you feel that you are busy but are not producing the results or the success you want, most likely, you have fallen into this trap.

If you don’t eliminate or get rid of the unimportant stuff, they will take control of your life and stop you from progressing forward.”

Get the essential task/project done

Sandrine Umumararungu an entrepreneur says that, once you get rid of the unimportant tasks, it is time to work hard on the high-impact work.

Don’t get me wrong, working hard is important, but you have to make sure you work hard on the right things, not just anything. You will still need to work for things that you want. I am not saying that you shouldn’t work hard, but instead, you should work hard on high-impact work, she says.