#97. Returns

We live in an efficiency obsessed world. Everything is measured in numbers, and what is not generating returns always suffers in comparison to other things which in our minds are more valuable to do. But how frequently is that the case?

Today, we analyse our prevailing thought patterns around the returns that are generated by our daily activities.

Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

– Anne Frank

In the recent past, the world has become completely obsessed with returns. What I mean by returns or productivity is the amount of outputs we are generating over per unit input. We have talked about productivity in the past, and you can read all about it here, but today, we will try to give that another kind of spin.

Well, it’s a numbers game with everything these days. Every paisa we invest should earn money on it. Businesses more than ever are mindful of expenses or investments they are making in systems to make sure they are getting the best bang for their bucks. As a matter of fact, the focus on how we spend out time these days has increased multi-fold, with every action being measured for the “worth” it will bring for us.

I want to talk about this with an example. In my current job, one day I was asked to fetch data some data points for 15 different sources. To elaborate, the item was to go into seven different connected websites, copy specific data points and paste them into a spreadsheet which collated the information for all the 15 sources, so basically, it was a total of 15*7=105 copy and paste operations that I needed to perform.

To be honest, there was no specific timeline that was given on this task. But I had some inhibitions off the bat. The task appeared very time consuming, and instinctively, my thoughts were “There are better uses of my time” followed by “Maybe there is a tool which should be able to scrape this information for me”. Hence began the search.

I started with the old trusted, Google to start looking for a tool that performs operations similar to this. After 30 minutes of searching, I was able to find a tool which claimed to be able to perform roughly 30% of the task in about 25 minutes.

I continued with my search and tried to identify something else that would cover 100% of the work I needed to do. After another 20 minutes, I came to a conclusion that there was no tool available for me to be able to outsource everything to it, and that is when I gave up.

My efforts of desperation turned into a surrender of acceptance. About an hour’s worth of effort to only realise I will have to do everything manually. I was almost getting angry, then I figured, all of this was my own doing, and if there was someone to be mad at it was myself. And hence, like any normal human being, I calmed down and started blaming. the tooling which wasn’t even available.

I spent the next 45 minutes to copy and paste everything into its rightful place. It was excruciating. This was an exercise in making sure I have copied the right data point, from the right source and pasting it in the right cell in the spreadsheet.

With sweaty brows, after completing the activity, I had a sudden moment of clarity. Probably because of the blood flow to my head after having used my brain for an activity I had deemed unconsciously mindless. I stumbled upon the initial thought I had, with a follow up question that led to my clarity.

I had embarked upon this adventure in futility with the thought: “There are better uses of my time”. I followed that up with this harrowing question: “What are those better uses?”.

My brain went limp for two minutes. What the hell? I was so sure that I had better things to do, in the middle of the work day, than working?

Unless I were to spawn activities that would have made me millions of dollars in those 45 minutes I had to copy and paste stuff, there was no viable explanation that I would have agreed with in my right mind. Had I become so averse to working that I am beginning to avoid mouse clicks and keyboard button presses?

In that moment, I started noticing the trend that has been going around. We need less clicks, uncluttered interfaces, less of so-called complexity and more of so-called easiness.

Let’s call a spade, a spade.

We are masking lazy behaviours as efforts for increased returns and efficiency.

The point I am getting at, is that the next time you are the middle of a thought of the nature of “There are better uses for my time”, I would follow that up with the question, “Tell me what they are, and we can stop doing this”. I am sure 99% of the time there will be dearth of a response that is grounded in the current, realistic situation.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂