Work And Its Types You would agree that its hard work pulls a truck, to lift a stack of books, from the floor to the shelves or to pull a sofa set across the room. Indeed, all of these examples agree with the everyday meaning of work. Any activity that requires muscular or mental effort is work. In common parlance, you are working hard. All this hard work may involve very little work if we go by the scientific definition of work. In day-to-day life, we consider any useful physical or mental labour as work. Activities like playing in a field, talking with friends, humming a tune, watching a movie, attending a function are sometimes not considered to be work. What constitutes work depends on the way we define it. We use and define the term work differently in science. SCIENTIFIC CONCEPT OF WORK In physics , work has a much more precise definition. In all the examples cited above, there is something in common. In each case, you do work by exerting a force on the body while the body moves