If I were to ask you to explain the opposite of hard work, you would likely say 'idleness', 'laziness' or some similar concept. It's easy to see why:
Hard work = prolonged time spent exerting intense effort on a task which requires significant energy expenditure.
Whereas,
Idleness = prolonged time spent exerting little/no effort on nothing productive which requires little energy expenditure.
The ways in which we measure the quality of work involve the action of working, and not its output. In reality, the opposite of hardwork is 'busywork'.
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Back in school, those viewed as hard-workers were those who spent a lot of time — quite visibly, might I add — doing work, thinking about doing work, talking about doing work, etc. Luckily for them, they often got a way with it by coincidentally producing results to match up with the production value.
I'm sure this was not exclusive to us, and I'm certain every school, workplace, or team likely has a handful of people who spend a lot of time trying to look busy. For the longest time, this approach has led us to believe the key to generating impressive work involved being perceived as busy — hence the 'working hard/hardly working' paradigm. The idea here is hard work looks impressive, and we all like to look, feel, and seem impressive.
I would much rather be idle and willingly lazy than seem or appear busy. With the former, I'm self-aware of my slothish and sluggish state. With the latter, I'm merely pretending for others, and the output of my faux-work will eventually speak for itself. Yet, I think we have a tendency for the former because that's what we've seen, that's what we know and that's what has been lauded. This very concept is the lifeblood of the corporate world.
I think the opposite of hard work is busy work, and frankly both are pretty useless. I say this for two reasons. First, busy work is appearing to do hard work, and hard work is appearing to do impressive work...it's all quite meta. Second, busy work is actually pretty easy to do, ergo easy work is the obvious opposite of hard work.
Hardwork may be suboptimal productivity, but busywork is largely false productivity. If there's one way to tell the difference between the two, note how people talk about their work. Why? Because hardwork does often generate some tangible output, but busywork only generates excuses bullshit. If you pay attention enough, the difference is clear. Ororo ≠ olive oil.
I've seen busywork first-hand at work and university, and I've done busywork myself with ventures. It seems more impressive to tell everyone you're going to be at the library for 10 hours; it is more impressive to do solid work and get tangible results. It seems more impressive to post about your startup; it is more impressive to have users, and ideally revenue.
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Busywork is much easier to do, because it feels better than laziness, but is equally as unproductive in terms of output. By, and large, results are the most important thing.
These days, I think the quality of one's work would speak for itself vs the 'grind' involved. If anything, it's pretty based to get shit done without as much of a fuss. That is actually impressive, and I respect those who are able to just get it done. These days, the value is in keeping your head down and getting useful work in.
TL;DR:
Smart work > hard work > busy work