How To Be More Productive

there's an axiom that everyone's heard about working smarter not harder now i get the point of this i like it i apply it but it doesn't really resonate with me because it sort of downplays the working harder part it sort of implies that if you're smart you won't have to work so hard it sort of holds up as an example of being smart not worrying about how hard you might have to work but spend a great deal of effort worrying about how smart you're working i think it's easy to get out of balance on this i think it's easy to stand around and talk about how to do something better when if you simply put your head down and went to work it would be done and well done by the time the discussion on the best possible method was just beginning to slow up enough for somebody to begin to pick up a tool now i'm overstating that but productivity is important and this little video is about how to become a more productive worker a ramp is not a sophisticated carpentry project is it a ramp is a deck that is inclined the tolerances don't have to be terribly tight although and as much as on this one it's part of the curb appeal of the house it had to look pretty good so i had to put together and utilize some systems and i had to work thankfully once you've developed that work hard muscle once you've developed that connection with the labor once you understand that working hard is in fact an athletic event and you can improve your athleticism and your muscles can respond more effectively and with more strength and your timing can get better as you try to get stronger and make your timing better a whole new aspect to hard work emerges and that is how can i work hard and enjoy it how can i think of the work i'm doing as if i was in a competition with myself how can i keep track of how much work i did yesterday or last week or a year ago and know when i have beaten my time my output how do i know i'm becoming more productive now i'm not a really literary guy i've read a lot i haven't had time for that in a few years but i used to enjoy reading robert frost he's a poet from vermont i think jackie kennedy was real fond of his work and i remember we probably many of us remember learning his iconic poem the road not taken when we were in grade school does that date me probably but anyway as i was thinking about being a productive worker and what it takes to really feel like you're earning your check i thought of a poem of his and i looked it up and sure enough there's a couple stanzas that i want to apply to this little deck project and the athletic experience of working hard it's called two tramps in mud time and the setting is a fellow's out in the yard splitting some blocks of oak and he likes it he's having a good time and then two strangers come down the road and it changes the dynamic for him and these two stanzas go like this out of the mud two strangers came and caught me splitting wood in the yard and one of them put me off my aim by hailing cheerily hit them hard i knew pretty well why he dropped behind and let the other go on away i knew pretty well what he had in mind he wanted to take my job for pay the time when i most loved my task these two must make me love it more by coming with what they came to ask you'd think i never had felt before the weight of an axe head poised aloft the grip on earth of outspread feet the life of muscles rocking soft and smooth and moist in vernal heat if you've had the experience of working hard you felt that rocking of muscles and of the coordination that grows and the fatigue that begins to set in but the determination to keep working even though you're tired there are times i have to admit when i've gone ahead and shoveled the gravel off the trailer just because it felt good to shovel now that's not a money making thing in every case but it's nice to be able to do that but let's not stray too far from working smarter one of the key pieces of working smarter especially on a little carpentry project like this is to use the proper tool for the job try to eliminate wasted effort incidentally wasted effort can lead to an entire discussion about allowable tolerances can it how much of a perfect fit in a different in different jobs is in fact wasted effort and how much of it is vitally important but using the proper materials and working conditions and everything but the item that really separates the productive individual is the system that the individual puts in place to get the work done one way to work smarter is to divide your work into specific tasks and then stay on one task as long as possible instead of jumping back and forth between related tasks when you're moving lumber move all the lumber when you're making cuts make as many cuts as possible if you can arrange it cut the pieces in place instead of measuring and cutting and putting them in place when you're drilling holes drill all the holes or at least all that you can right now hopefully you can see why this is so much better you can generally work with fewer tools laid out means a cleaner workspace you develop a little muscle memory as you do a task 30 to 40 times or three to four hundred times and then the next time you get a chance to do this task you will have the advantage of having done it a lot earlier and your body knows that action and your productivity is gonna be respectable from the first moment you will almost always get faster at the task as you repeat it so repeat it so i was trying to do this wait a minute i guess i wasn't trying to do this i was trying to get this ramp project built i was trying to initiate a few systems that would minimize how long i was going to be out here doing it because i didn't know how long the good weather was going to last and mom was going to need the ramp soon so i was in a race with myself and i'm not as productive as i once was but i still enjoy working it feels good to be productive and it's really nice at the end of the day to look back and say i can remember when this would have taken me a little longer i must be getting better [Music] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] [Music] if you are concentrating on the work smarter piece rather than the work harder piece there is nothing that you can do that is smarter than learning from the people around you now one of cs lewis's quotations that has always stuck in my mind as a warning is quote two of a trade never agree close quote so what that's saying is that two people who spend their lot time their lives doing the same type of work are never going to agree that the other way other guy's way or the other woman's perspective or the other method is anywhere near as good as theirs because that's the way i do it therefore it's superior the smartest thing we can do is decide before we ever get to work in the morning that everybody we meet that day is going to have something that i can learn from them if i want to learn it this axiom has the bonus of being true in all cases so the best thing you can do if you want to become a more productive hand if you want to experience the joy of getting more work done in a day than anybody thought was humanly possible is make it a point to learn something from everyone around you every day pay attention to the way they handle material pay attention to the way they stage their work pay attention to the way they put their boards in place and you will add that to your repertoire of tricks and techniques and after a while not only will you be working harder but you're going to be smart and people are going to wonder wow how did you learn all that stuff and you won't feel like you have to mention that it was all learned just by keeping your eyes open while you were earning your living producing good work [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so as i think about 40 years of work and the people i've worked with the people who've made the biggest impression on me for their raw productivity and then i circle back around to this axiom about working smarter not harder i'm convinced that the axiom is good as far as it goes but to really become a top hand the thing that must always be on your mind is how can i work smarter and smarter and harder and harder in order to get as much work done as i possibly can by the time the sun goes down you

Channel: Essential Craftsman

Views: 3,524,300

Keywords: how to, productivity, work, working, construction, building, ramp, wheel chair, chair, time lapse, build, make, maker

Id: qP1AmDRhoas

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 12 2018