Are You Working Hard, Or Hardly Working?

The key to a more fulfilled professional life? Doing both, says Grace Beverley, entrepreneur and Founder of fitness app Shreddy and activewear brand TALA.

- Marianne Eloise

During her final term at the University of Oxford, Grace Beverley wrote 40,000 words, sat for exams, launched a business, rebranded another, and hired her first full-time employees. “I felt like I was hustling, but I was volatile and stressed out,” she says. Grace realised that she was “the least productive when I was working the most.”

The world can often seem divided in two: the girl-boss brigade and the self-care camp. Grace, a former fitness influencer and now the founder of two successful businesses (TALA, an activewear brand, and fitness app Shreddy) with a million Instagram followers to boot, saw this divide and became frustrated that the nuanced need for both wasn’t being discussed. “I’d share my thoughts on productivity and get comments saying I needed to relax and chill out, but when I’d post a picture of myself chilling out, the other side would pop up saying, ‘If you don’t come out of the pandemic having learned a new skill, it is proof that you didn’t lack time, just discipline.’ She adds, “I couldn’t win.” Believing working hard and hardly working to be two sides of the same productivity coin, Grace created a new productivity blueprint that forms the basis of her new book, Working Hard, Hardly Working. Here, she shares advice on how to balance work and time out in a way that works for you.

Reality dictates that we need to make money. We also want careers that challenge us. Business books are great but they can be dry, so here are a few lessons from them about working smarter. Et voilà...

PLAN YOUR TIME