He's definitely advocating both, but reducing the advice to "work smarter and harder" strips out all of the social and cultural context which gives it motivational force.

The idea of making an "extraordinary effort" compels you to define your efforts relative to what's "ordinary", pitting you against not only your own everyday level of effort, but also against the masses. "Work smarter and harder" doesn't.

Granted, the post could've been more concise.

I think what "work smarter and harder" misses the most is not the level of effort you need to make, but that in order to get to that level of "extraordinary effort" you need to take risks.

I think trying to reduce this post to one sentence is probably a bad idea anyways. I thought it was worthwhile reading.

I agree. (Incidentally, I wasn't trying to put down your comment specifically, in case it came across that way. I just replied to it since I didn't want to duplicate the point that working harder was also part of the equation.)

Hah, no problem. This is one of the few sites I assume by default people are trying to be positive.

The "Trying to Try"[1] post linked to early in this article has an answer to that: The slightest effort suffices to convince ourselves that we have done our best.

    Work smarter and harder.

Couldn't you, in your head, convince yourself that you are working "harder", simply by imagining that you could work less hard than you currently are? Couldn't you do that, regardless of you current level of work? So does "work harder" even mean anything?

[1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/10/trying-to-try.html