Last week, I ran a livestream event for a few thousand people. I shipped a feature on my SaaS product. I managed client deliverables. And I still made it home for dinner with my wife and two-year-old.

A year ago, that literally never would have been possible. It would have buried me.

The difference isn’t that I’m working harder. The difference is that I stopped doing all of the work myself.

“Working smarter, not harder” could be one way to describe my entire life. I always try to do things the “smart way.” Not necessarily to avoid hard work, but because I’ve always thought that was the way to success. Oftentimes, the smart way is more work than just doing the damn thing.

I have spent incredible amounts of time coding a tool to help me do something that took 3–5 times longer than just writing the document, provisioning a live stream, or simply writing the documentation. I get this dopamine hit, this crazy little rush when I have the idea of, “I know a faster/better way to do this!” It has been nearly impossible to avoid then doing that thing.