I can tell you why you’re not working hard enough. There are a lot of people who know how to work intelligently, with both work and life in general. They only engage in activities that are precisely planned and efficiently organized. These are often the well-educated people, those who know the best, smartest use of time. But often they spend a lot of it relaxing or enjoying fun activities.

Then there are the hard workers. They’re the people who do the heavy lifting. They end each day both physically and mentally exhausted. These are the people who work 60+ hours per week, striving for some piece of the American dream.

Lastly, but by far the rarest group of them all is the smart-hard worker. This person is someone who not only engages in thoughtful planning, meaningful self-improvement and learning, but also in the daily “grind”, the discipline-filled early mornings, the continuous extension of energy.

By far the last group can achieve the most. Not only do they have the advantages of planning and efficiency, they also spend enough time working that they can begin to get a better grasp of their tasks and gain a larger force of momentum behind them as they get into the swing of things.

One of the best times to make strides towards this happy medium of efficiency (thoughtfulness, planning) and force (work, discipline) is being a student with a job.

Now before you go off and start dismissing this idea as both impractical and stupid, please take this journey with me through my thought process and how I worked 40 to 50 hours per week while going to school full-time (and still spending a little time with family and getting a 3.8 GPA).

First, why work in school? One of the reasons most students work is to both pay for school, and gain valuable work experience in college. I want to add one more reason: better grades. Better grades? Yeah. According to a cnbc.com article there is a correlation between students who work part-time and those who get better grades. The reason this makes sense is that having a job creates a sense of greater responsibility in your life. You not only have a different perspective, but you also have less time to goof off, which makes it easier to get down to business.

I would recommend most students seriously consider working at least 20 hours per week during the semester. Not only will you most likely get better grades, you can also start to see more money coming in to pay expenses.

My challenge: get a job while you’re in school. You might find that you have more confidence, job experience and money.