I published a video about my opinion of what work is that I would like to share. First you play, then you work and then you think. The virtues of laziness. See YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgAtlTnWi30
The text of the video is below.
The art of work and play
Work, as seen by the sharp eyes of children, is a game adults play for money. Because all games have rules, to make your work into a game, you have to follow some rules. The first rule of games is not to aim too high if you want to enjoy the game. The second rule is not to take the game too seriously. It's not about winning or losing, but about how you play the game. So if you want to have a good game, you have to play it right.
The higher quality you aim for, the lower quantity you hit. If 80% is too low for you, you can reach for 90% at twice the cost, effort, time, and stress. An additional danger is being perceived as better than you are and being expected to maintain your high level. Prolonged, this can make you or break you. If it breaks you, you get a burnout. If you get too badly burned, you can suffer a nervous breakdown.
Because we live in a very superficial world where appearance is valued more than substance, you can take advantage of this. If you cover cracked or stained floors or walls with pictures, plants or stones, you save yourself time and money from repairing them.
Because the beginning and the end of things are more important than their middle, you can take advantage of this. You don`t have to cook a fancy meal to impress. A few fancy appetizers, wine and a rich creamy dessert is all it takes, saving you time and money.
Practical tips to save time and energy:
Use the carpet as temporary places to sweep things under. Works with indoor as well as outdoor carpets. Instead of chasing leaves in the wind, sweep them under the doormat. They will get pressed into doormats themselves that can be at a later time easily rolled up and discarded as compost behind the closest bush.
Don`t clean the the whole thing just because it has a spot of dirt on it. Just clean the spot. This is useful not only for bulky things like carpets and coats, but also for floors and shirts.
Develop a chronological universal filing system, not only for your office papers, but for your clothes as well. This way the newest things you receive will be always on the top and the oldest things always on the bottom making things easy to find quickly.
Don`t do things now when you can do them in the last moment. If you do them now, it will take longer than if you do them the last minute. And if you do them now, you will probably re do them in the last minute anyways, so save yourself the trouble.
Don`t make things complicated when you can make them simple.
Adjust your speed according to the quality to quantity ratio you aim for. And don`t aim too high.
Below is an example of how you could make your work more enjoyable and more like a game if you happened to be a janitor.
Call yourself a "certified manager of halls, stairs, parking lot and the garden".
Don't play the extra role of policeman.
Don`t socialize with the tenants but do take the opportunity to help the tenants carry thing up the stairs whenever you see them struggling. This act of kindness reaps great rewards.
Your presence is more important than shiny stairs.
Concentrate on cleaning the few places most used. Wipe clean the front door and the mailboxes so that tenants notice you have been around.
Never let the stairs get shiny clean. Allow them every once in a while to get a bit dirty, like stairs normally get so that the tenants notice that you have cleaned them.
Mop the stairs every week with the biggest flat mop you can buy, and use the hottest water you have.
Never use soap and have ready statistics on the dangers of slippery stairs.
Allow tenants to leave their shoes outside the hall by their door. You have less floor to clean.
Never ask the residents if everything is OK. This show of interest reaps great problems for you.
Tips on efficient outside work.
It is easier to keep grass short and cut it more often than to let it grow and cut it when it is high. When you cut every week, then you do not have to worry about collecting and disposing them behind bushes. Hand operated lawn mower and clippers are the best as you do not have to worry about repairs, batteries, cables, or fuel.
Ask the tenants to let the weeds grow saying that someone wants to use them as a herbal tea for a debilitating disease they suffer from.
Shovel snow or rake leaves to the side making piles for children to play in and on.
The brain is only 2% of the weight of a body but uses 20% of the energy, about 20 Watts worth. 60 minutes of heavy thinking burns about 100 calories. This is about the same as 15 minutes of moving furniture or 30 minutes of washing dishes.
By working like your work was a game, you save a great deal of time and money. The more time you save the more time you have to spend on your most important gift and your greatest talent; thinking.
On Wednesday, October 31, 2012 3:53:30 AM UTC+1, rigsy03 wrote:
It is also bribery by entitlements for votes-overextended bureaucracy---
degradation of work and nobly acquired wealth/property- theft by
redistribution- loopholes- uncivil politics- false standards and
aspirations- etc. How do you define work?
On Oct 30, 7:36 am, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A waiter in Rome explained where the 100 Euros our meal for two went -
> there were three tiers of owners before he talked about tax! Very
> little of our money is invested in productive organisation rigsy - as
> low as 15%. The rest is in a bloat system to do with speculation on
> very ordinary stuff like our houses and property - even this would be
> OK if the financiers weren't dipping this aspect of our collective
> wallet. My guess is the real cause of current problems is the
> detachment of work from wealth and some general problems similar to
> the waiter's complaint on the number of rents to pay.
> Current thinking has most of the bloat system as a Ponzi scheme based
> on inflation replacing new investor money in the traditional scheme or
> pyramid. The Japanese went into it long before we did because of land
> restrictions. It was the mid-eighties when I was there and people
> were buying options on as yet and never to be built golf courses and
> mortgages were often three generations long.
>
> The big economics term is 'rent' - but this really means 'accumulated
> rip-off privilege' (or idlers) as in the waiter's complaint. Some
> companies I worked for were so dumb they didn't even do overnight
> banking - though one notes the banks were smart enough not to offer it
> and take the profit themselves. Economics is like trying to do
> biology from Aristotle - stuck in the non-modern. It would be
> interesting to take Don's (say) views I mostly agree with apart - our
> system is not based on such sound sense - it just pretends to be. We
> all lack the facts that would make for really practical discussion.
> We could have banking without rich bankers - you could soon manipulate
> the spreadsheets I use - the problem is you/we can't get the data that
> matters because it's already over-theorised to somewhere south of
> Hell. I have never found the work as complex as my role in getting a
> bit of a ship built.
>
> In the end, my suspicion is economics really is war by other means and
> we are too scared to form a system that is honest. We cope with
> phlogiston theory instead. Unless I find some new work in the next
> couple of months I'll be working with Saudis - 99% of that will be
> wasted!
>
> On 26 Oct, 14:28, rigsy03 <rigs...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > What about radical spending/debt? What about the non-reward for
> > saving?
>
> > Lawns should be outlawed and probably will be when clean water is
> > precious and rare. I refuse to make coffee from recycled urine or
> > other recycled waste water but...the spirit is willing but the flesh
> > is weak.
>
> > On Oct 23, 7:13 pm, archytas <nwte...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Banking is estimated to contribute between 8 and 14% of UK GDP. It
> > > will be smaller in most other countries, but is still held to be
> > > vital. I doubt the figures but this doesn't really matter At 14%
> > > banking matches manufacturing contribution in the UK.
>
> > > In a business account we always want to reduce bank charges to a
> > > minimum. Financial services are a cost to be reduced to minimum. I
> > > can never see why we have fallen for the idea that moving money around
> > > has anything to do with a productive economy. We would hardly
> > > organise hard work like clearing farm land by matching the number of
> > > us breaking our backs with a similar number of bankers sitting in
> > > armchairs.
>
> > > I tend to think banking is just a front for organised thieving. We
> > > cut out all kinds of management and jobs in manufacturing and it's
> > > hard to see how piling bank buildings high with staff makes any
> > > sense. In science we generally try to reduce resources going into
> > > control to a minimum. We need some radical ideas on how Al Capone is
> > > getting away with all the banking going on. My guess is banking is
> > > really just a tax mechanism we don't get to vote for.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
0 comments:
Post a Comment