I’m always looking for more economy of action in my work.
The story of a career can be seen through the perspective of finding ever-more efficient ways to do the same work. I know that I’m shockingly more effective at doing my work cleanly, with less extraneous effort or exertion, compared to how I did it at the beginning of my career. It’s my hope to continue this trend in the years ahead. The saved exertion can be put to good use: taking on more creative challenges, learning new ideas and approaches, or just finding a little more time to rest!
According to Seth Godin, the term “jerking around” was invented to describe Henry Ford’s employees under the techniques of Frederick Winslow Taylor. And I’ve soured on the ideas of life hacking and personal optimization: we don’t need to treat ourselves as machines in that way. But the idea of brushing away all the unnecessary work to find a parsimonious approach is both appealing and rewarding.