The thing many dont realize is: If you have a good plan and follow it, you will very often have more freedom to try out new things than when your planning is chaotic or non-existent — because then literally every step is made out of fear, out of panic, to avoid pain or because other decisions froced you into something.
I say this because startups would argue about creativity and all that, but having worked aomw time both in art school and on film sets I can guarantee that the qell prepared always have more freedom than those who just try to figure things out as they go.
Thinking it is somehow more honorable to plan badly, throw peoples lifetime at the thing and getting a somewhat okayish result is really problematic in my eyes. Romantizing things that could have been solved by realistic (or even pessimistic) planning is not cool, it just shows me that you have no experience.
I studied film. I directed films and I was on more films sets than I wish I would have been. While this is certainly uncommon (especially in low budget productions), it is definitly not delusional. Quite the opposite, as I already argued.
So i wholly agree that the old adage "work smarter, not harder" applies here.
The fool is most likely yourself if you are available 24/7 and work long hours more often than not.
The crazy thing is, they think they can just throw manhours at bad planning and somehow make it work.
You can literally plan well, have a good life and still come out ahead of these chaotic organizations that make everybody run in circles out of pure panic.
I have seen this so often in film projects: people believe by exploiting themselves, their crew and their cast they somehow "extract" more value and magically make it work. And that one one the point, relexad, but well-planned project will always achieve better results. Because oh wonder: crews and casts that are not overworked and that use their maximum potential where it matters instead of spreading it out over the whole project will always produce better results.