like the book. *** WHAT YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO When you start your first job, all your attention is focused on not screwing up. Your chief goal as a newbie is to simply do a good job. Working smart means doing what is required. As you gain confidence in your ability to complete a job, your task is to learn new things, to take on additional chores. At this stage, working smart meant doing more than is required. The next level is exploration. The greater number of additional tasks you try, the faster you begin to see what you are better at. Working smart means trying as many roles as you can in order to discover what you are smart at. As you educate yourself about your own talent and ambitions, you graduate from doing a task right to doing the right task. It takes some experience to realize that a lot of work is better left undone. It might be busy work that is performed out of habit, or it may work heading in the wrong direction. Working smart means making sure you are spending your time on jobs that are effective or that need to be done at all. But the smart journey doesn't end there. If you really pay attention to the feedback of those around you, and constantly strive to improve, you may eventually be able to discover your own best talents. At this stage you can begin to do only jobs (that really need