In recent weeks, we talked about why to do lists don’t work, and then showed the opposite view by offering some ideas about how to use a to do list effectively. Last week, we addressed the source of burnout and promised to address satisfaction and accomplishment this week. Here goes one take on the subject – not the only take, nor an exhaustive one, just another view, one that may be useful.
Little Things Can Have Big Impact: Getting the Right Thing Done Right
Here’s a personal example of what happens if you don’t know the value of what you are doing or why it matters. When I was growing up, my father owned a little two man machine shop. He was a tool and die maker and by all accounts did great work.
He went bankrupt a couple of times, not because of lack of skill, but because of lack of business sense. That’s where I enter in.
Dad used to have me come to the shop on weekends to help get things done. Sometimes it was pretty simple work, like cleaning up scrap filings and other messes built up during the week. Sometimes he had me make simple parts for him
On this one Saturday, he sat me down in front of a drill press and put a box of 5,000 plastic tubes in front of me. Each little tube was about three inches long, and each one needed a hole drilled in the middle, equidistant between the two ends.
With not much more instruction than what I just gave you here, he told me to get going and that we could go home when I was done. At 15, I didn’t need much motivation to move quickly and get out of there.
So, I powered my way through those little plastic tubes. Drill. Drill. Drill. And then the drill bit broke, so I had to go tell him and he set up another one in the press. Drill. Drill. Drill. And another one broke. I was about 1,500 pieces through when the second one broke.
Continue reading on The Huffington Post.
Comments are closed.