Increasing Efficiency In Business - Walter Dill Scott (ebook reader browser .txt) 📗
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the alphabet forward but to insert after each
letter a single syllable, such as “two,” it takes
sixteen seconds. Thus, a 2, b 2, C 2, d 2, etc.,
requires eight times as many seconds as the
simple alphabet, a, b, c, d, e, etc. The
sequence which has become most perfectly
habitual requires but two seconds; the process
which employs the old habit in part requires
sixteen seconds; but the act which
has never been reduced to a habit at all (repeating
the alphabet backward) requires at
least sixty seconds.
Some time ago I could pick out the letters
on a typewriter at the rate of about one per
second. Writing is now becoming reduced
to a habit, and I can write perhaps three
letters a second. When the act has been
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reduced to the pure habit form, I shall be
writing at the rate of not less than five letters
per second.
I can send a telegraph message at a rate but
little faster than one contact per second.
Those who have reduced the transmission of
messages to a habit are capable of making
twelve contacts per second.
In multiplying one three-place number by
another I have the fixed habit of writing the
multiplier under the multiplicand, the partial
products under these, and the final product
beneath all. If I reverse all these positions,
the multiplying should be no more difficult,
but as a matter of fact this simple reversal
increases the time of operation about eighty-five
per cent. All mathematical operations are
rapid in proportion to the degree to which they
are habitual.
The speed of thought is slow unless it follows
the old creases and the old grooves. No
adequate speed is possible so long as attention
must be given to the succeeding stages of the
thought or act. This is true of all acts and
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of all thoughts, whether in the home or upon
the street, in the shop or in the office.
Great speed of thought and action must
not be confused with hurried thought and
action. Speed which is habitual is never
hurried. There are many acts of skill which
can be done much more easily if performed
rapidly than if performed slowly. When
working hurriedly, there is a speeding up of
all movements whether necessary or unnecessary;
but the speed secured from correct habits
is primarily dependent upon the elimination of
useless movements and the concentration of
energy at the essential point.
HABIT INCREASES ACCURACY OF ACTING AND
THINKING
Where machinery can be employed we find
greatly increased accuracy of work. The
product of the loom and the lathe are more
perfect, more uniform, and more accurate in all
details than similar work produced by hand.
The product of the printing press thus attains
a greater degree of accuracy in details than
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was ever attained by the ancient monk in the
printing of his scrolls.
In general, our work becomes accurate, as
well as swift, in the degree to which we are
able to mechanize it into habits. The beginner
in piano playing or typewriting pays
attention to the striking of each key. When
he is in this stage of development he is liable
at any time to strike the wrong key and certainly
cannot be depended upon for regularity
of touch. As soon as he has reduced the
striking of the keys to a habit, he ceases to
strike the wrong keys and secures uniformity of
touch.
The expert marksman has reduced to a habit
the necessary steps of shooting and gives no
special attention to the position of the fingers,
the tension of the hands, the angle of the head,
the closing of the eye, and the pulling of the
trigger. He has reduced all these to habit
before he is able to secure his expert skill.
The reliable bookkeeper has reduced to
habit the combining of all the ordinary sums
of the ledger. The man of accuracy of speech
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is the one whose thoughts clothe themselves
in the verbal expressions by habit but with
no conscious selection of words. The man of
the most accurate judgment in any field is the
one who has succeeded in reducing to habit most
of the steps of the judgments in that field, the
one who has the largest stock of intuitive
judgment.
HABIT RELIEVES THE ATTENTION FROM DETAILS
Attention cannot be directed to more
than one thing at a time. It is doubtless
true that the “one thing” may be very complex,
e.g. four letters or even four words.
So long as the performance of an act demands
attention, this one act is practically all that
can be done at that time. As soon as this
thing is reduced to habit, it may go on automatically,
and the attention may be turned
to other things.
When I begin to learn to play the piano,
the finger movements require all my attention
so that I cannot read the notes on the
scale and make the proper execution at the
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same time. Gradually, the reading of notes
and the execution are reduced to habit, and
I can then turn my attention to the reading
of the words of the air. As each essential detail
is reduced to habit, I acquire the ability to
read the score, to make the correct finger and
foot movements, to read the words of the
song, to sing it correctly, and at the same
time to be thinking more or less of other
things.
My use of the pen has become so reduced
to habit that I need pay no attention to the
writing, but am enabled to give my entire
attention to the thought which I am attempting
to formulate. So every useful habit
becomes a power or a tool which may be used
for multiplying the efficiency of the individual.
Habit formation is the greatest labor saving
device in the human economy. No one has
expressed this truth so forcefully as the late
Professor William James.
“The great thing, then, in all education,
is to make our nervous system our ally instead
of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize
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our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the
interest of the fund. For this we must make
automatic and habitual, as early as possible,
as many useful actions as we can, and guard
against the growing into ways that are likely
to be disadvantageous to us as we should
guard against the plague. The more of the
details of our daily life we can hand over to the
effortless custody of automatism, the more our
higher powers of mind will be set free for their
own proper work. There is no more miserable
human being than one in whom nothing is
habitual but indecision, and for whom the
lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every
cup, the time of rising and going to bed every
day, and the beginning of every bit of work,
are subjects of express volitional deliberation.
Full half the time of such a man goes to the
deciding or regretting of matters which ought
to be so ingrained in him as practically not to
exist for his consciousness at all. If there be
such daily duties not yet ingrained in any one
of my readers, let him begin this very hour to
set the matter right.”
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HABIT REDUCES EXHAUSTION
The various acts connected with my morning
toilet have been reduced to sheerest habit.
I do not think of the different acts as I perform
them—they seem to perform themselves.
The sequence of the various acts and the manner
of performing them are not particularly
good, but I do not seem inclined to change
them. I put on my left shoe before my right,
my right sleeve before my left. I have the
absurd habit of washing my teeth after I
have washed my face. That my habits may
execute themselves automatically, all the articles
of my toilet must be in their proper
places. I am thwarted in carrying out my
habits unless my laundry has been properly
placed, unless towels, brushes, etc., are all
where they should be. If everything is in its
place, I get down to breakfast refreshed and
recuperated. If the toilet articles are so located
that I am compelled to do consciously
what I might have done subconsciously, I get
down to breakfast irritated and nervously
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depleted. The peace and restfulness of an
orderly and systematic household are in part
dependent upon the fact that it is only in such
a household that we are enabled to turn over
to habit the accomplishment of untold recurrent
acts.
The experienced accountant can add figures
continuously for eight hours a day, and
at the end of the day may feel no great
exhaustion. The man who has not reduced
to habit the necessary steps in addition
cannot add continuously for two hours
without a degree of exhaustion so great that
it paralyzes effort. The same is true with
typewriting, telegraphing, and with all forms
of manipulations which may be reduced to
habit.
The habit of reading in a foreign language
is rarely so well established as the habit of
interpreting the printed symbols of the mother
tongue. Even when I seem to be reading
German as easily as English, a few hours spent
in reading German is to me much more exhausting
than the same amount of time spent
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with an English book. Attending lectures
delivered in German is to me more exhausting
than the same lectures would be if delivered
in English.
Work that requires much constructive thinking
cannot be continued for many hours a day.
This is due to the fact that such thinking does
not admit of complete reduction to specific
habits. The executive who accomplishes much
is the man who has formed many useful habits
and who is able to fall back on them for a large
part of his work. His decisions are reached
in a habitual manner. Investigations take a
regular, automatic course. All the details
of the office are reduced to mechanical system.
No useless energy is spent in giving attention
to details that can be better done by habit,
and the mind is thus freed from exhaustion
and left fresh for attacking the problems
arising for solution.
The performance of every new act and the
thinking of every new idea is of necessity exhausting,
and they become easy to the extent
to which they utilize old habits. Although
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constructive thinking is most stimulating and
exciting, no man can continue it for more than
a few hours or a few minutes unless it depends
mainly upon old habits.
Some of the most constructive thinkers of
the world have been men who could work at
their original work for but a few minutes at
a time. One brilliant contemporary writer
accomplishes most when he works not more
than fifteen minutes at a time. Charles
Darwin is famous for the originality of his
thinking, and hence we are not surprised when
we find that he was able to work but three
hours out of the twenty-four.
PERSONAL HABITS
Personal habits are the most apparent and
those by which we most often judge an individual.
Manner of dress becomes so much a
matter of habit that the wearing apparel is
sometimes spoken of as the habit, and, as
Shakespeare says, it oft betrays the man.
Cleanliness and neatness of appearance, the
tone and accent of voice, the manner of walk-
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ing and of carrying the head, and the use of
language are personal habits which are acquired
early in life, but which mean much in
the chances of
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