GET BUSY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 3 December 1927, Page 9

GET BUSY

Patting Method Into It

HOW TIME IS WASTED

A ND who else was it who said thal it is a waste of good energy to use a sledge-hammer to crack nuts? Mr. Arnold Bennett wrote a series of books on mental efficiency some years ago, one of which he entitled “How to Live on 24 Hours a Day,” and there are many of our present-day business men who could do worse than give their days and nights to the study of that excellent manual.

Those who are guilty of “frittering away their mornings in chaiking the cue” instead of getting on with the game they have chosen to play as a means of livelihood, have a good deal to learn from a moment or

two’s study of the vast difference a little method can make in the enhancement cf their business prosperity. THE FUSSY MERCHANT. True, the life we all have to live in these days is one of jostle and push; but yet it is possible for us all to be busy and level-headed at the same time. It is all a matter of system. You may go into one business house during the rush hour to find a perplexed and flurried manager running around “like a hen on a hot girdle,” vainly trying to do three things at once or to be in two places at one time. The chances are that you will not be served as yotT wish, and may pass on to Messrs. Opposition and Co. next time you have that kind of business to do. There is even a fussy kind of eagerness to p.'ease the customer, and a too fluent garrulity on the part of assistants, which may make rather for loss than for gain in trade.

Again, in these days, one can be so very much too much up-10-date that the customary amenities of business courtesj' are sacrificed to sheer hustle. We personally suspect the harassed-looking individual who sits with an air of dejection before his desk, over which he has suspended the motto, “This is My Busy Day,” or, “Do It Now.” The man of real efficiency gives the impression of quiet courtesy and abundant leisure, for the very good reason that he has his work systematised. ONE THING AT A TIME. The Roman Emperor Julian, Gibbon tells us in his “Decline and Fall,” was credited with wonderful skill in dividing his attention between many things. Thus, it is alleged, he could write a letter to a friend while he received a verbal report from the battlefield and at the same time give verbal orders to a subordinate regarding some affair of State. You may take that with a grain of salt, Gibbon notwithstanding, and perhaps be well advised not to try it, for the sake of your own peace of mind' if not for the sake of your business. But the pathetic thing is that so many men in trade try to ape such feats without possessing the necessary qualifications. It is a good thing, when watching a conjurer on the stage, to put your hands over your eyes so that you can see nothing but the hands of the conjurer. The chances are that if you listen to what he has to say, follow the direction of his glance, observe the dis-

“You may take a field-piece to shoot sparrows, but all the sparrows you may bring home will not be worth the charge.” ~ —Dr. Johnson. “It is of no use to invoke the lightning instead of striking a match.” _t. Carlyle.

tractions he is only too willing to create, you will miss the crucial moment at which he introduces the rabbit into the hat. It is just like that in business, to some degree. You must concentrate. In business, of course, you concentrate on number one.

You must bend your brows to the one immediate problem on hand and Jet the whole world for the moment go hang. You can (and you know it) take up so much time in telling the other fellow how busy you are, that half of your pressing work might have bean done. GETTING DOWN TO IT. It is perfectly true that the obsolete methods you may have taken over with your business are of no use to deal adequately with your affairs; but it is equally true that success comes to the man who will make the utmost of what he has, and use it as a stepping stone upon which to rise to more efficient methods.

Don’t envy ths other fellow. Get on with your own job. The great men in business have been those who hammered doggedly away at one thing at a time until they had built an enduring structure of success. Get down to details. That stupid old Greek warrior, Achilles, should have known better than to leave a joint in his armour. And, of course, it was precisely through that joint that he “got his.’.’ Anybody could take this golden opportunity to multiply proverbs and tell you that the strength of a chain is its.weakest link, that the speed of an army is the speed of its slowest man, or that a stitch in time saves nine. They may sound trite because of their familiarity, but they are true. Successful business depends upon the strength of the weak link; the rate of your slowest worker, and the application of the necessary stitches in threadbare places. HARD WORK. Oh, yes. Unpopular words. Very. But, alas, tljere is no substitute for them. The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upwards in the night. Familiar again; well-known as the'proverbs, but equally true. “Work,’ ’said Carlyle, “is a perenially noble and sacred thing.” Most of us call it a darned nuisance. Yet the old sage has it. “Produce!” he said again, or growled it, most likely, “Produce! Were it but the pitifullest, infinitesimal fragment of a product, produce it in God’s name! ’Tis the utmost thou hast in thee? Out with it, then!”

The daily grind is not so very much of a grind either, to the man whose heart is in his work. To choose a trade or profession is presumably to choose something at which you are prepared to work. Success comes by no patent means. It Is not procrastination that is the thief of time. It is idleness.