So again, not all work is created equal.

Every business, job, or project has what I call a leverage point that instantly makes everything else you do more effective.

If you're a team manager, it might be some ritual you create to keep morale high among your workers. If you're a programmer, it might be educating yourself on new types of databases. If you work in face-to-face sales, it might be spiffying up your appearance and learning how to understand your customers on an emotional level.

When it comes to online content, branding is a leverage point—it's something that the more you work on and perfect, the more it will have a multiplier effect on everything else—sales will come easier, traffic will stick better, people will talk about you and spread your content more efficiently.

So, accomplishing some aspects of your job well can make everything else that much easier…

…Or that much harder.

My one and only "real" job was at a bank for a grand total of about six weeks. This bank (which shall remain nameless) had a very specific procedure for a certain type of data entry that involved software as old as my mother and a totally backwards-ass way of inputting the data. It made the entire process mind-numbingly slow.

Essentially, the bank had created what I call a deleverage point—work that made all other work slower and more difficult.

But about as soon as I pointed out to my boss that all of this work could be handled by a simple script and compiled into a spreadsheet, I was told to sit down, shut up, and enter the data how I'd been told to.

I quit a few weeks later.