Heya,
Alright, so a bit of a quick one. One thing that's been on my mind is how we define "work" in this day and age. I would say—anecdotally—that most of us consider effort to be the measure of "work," i.e., the amount of time spent doing things, or the amount of concentration whilst doing these things; perhaps even a combination of the two in some sense.
For a long time, I unconsciously considered this to be the way I measured my work. However, I would be lying if I said this didn't cause me some cognitive dissonance in my day-to-day life. I considered the possibility that, although your intentions can be great and your dedication to doing great things can also be high, ultimately the measure of success is the outcome of your actions.
Did you get the task done? And more importantly, did you complete a task that is actually conducive to the goals you've set out? Well, I asked myself this question, and the answer was no. It felt unfair for a while, since it seemed that the outcome was essentially equivalent to a person who genuinely intended to do nothing, and did so. I think I've come to the conclusion that the antidote to this predicament is to prioritize the important things and to remove unimportant tasks completely.
I have to give credit to Alex Hormozi for his brilliant video that does a much better job of explaining this in detail, and I've also zoomed in on a specific part of what he was speaking about. So please do give it a watch if you think you can do more and achieve more for the effort you put in. Just as a side note, he asks the audience whether they think the definition of work in Physics, being work = force x distance, is accurate and useful to business and work. He says no, but ironically I find that, as I thought about it, it seems that this definition is just a generalized form of the "equation" he comes up with in the end.
Anyway, like I said, this was going to be a quick one, and I think this video is rather helpful for working—be it at a startup or an established company. I know it certainly was for me.