Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

takes a full minute. If I attempt to say

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

<p 315>

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.”

 

<p 318>

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

<p 319>

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-

<p 322>

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