When I was 22, and new to the world of work, I believed in Making An Effort. I turned up to meetings with a notebook filled with ideas in my neatest handwriting, and two kinds of pens in case an unspecified inky disaster befell me. As my career progressed, or rather, didn’t, I realised that there was no point bringing your all to an area with a finite effort : reward ratio. I learned that it was possible to get by and get the same results with a hangover instead of an ideas folder, and that “preparing” could include showering before work. Even that wasn’t necessarily a given.
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