Goofing off or.... ?
As I have said, it has been a hectic week, and it shall continue for at least 2 more weeks. I am like 2 days behind schedule in my translation, as the current project timeline did not include the time I needed to update the translations from my previous 2 projects. So, onwards~!
Which brings me to today's topic. There was a study carried out at www.salary.com that said, the average America spends 2.09 hours 'goofing off' each workday, not inclusive of lunchtime. The study equates this to the fact that since work is invading personal time (e.g. on call engineers), personal time has decided to invade back. And that this is a reflection of people's 'resentment' of having to work longer hours for the same compensation.
For me, I beg to differ. I do not believe that a human being can work nonstop for an 8 hour stretch a day. The brain will just go sluggish and start to produce sub-par work. Then again there is the 80%-20% study, which I found very interesting. This study shows that the natural, optimum rate of efficiency is 80%.
The experiment goes like this: Put 20 kindergarten kids in a room with toys, let them roam free for a while, and asked them to stow away the toys after 15 minutes of play. It was observed that roughly 16 of them will do so while the other 4 continued to play.
The second day, 4 of the 'lazy' kids are removed from the group, and the same thing is repeated. This time, it was observed that 13 kids kept their toys and 3 continued to play.
The third day, the 3 'newly lazy' kids are removed, and the same thing is repeated. This time, 8 kids kept the toys, and 2 continued playing.
All the monitoring was done by a hidden camera, and it is interesting to see that whenever the 'unproductive' element is removed, an approximate 20% worth of 'new' unproductivity always enter the system. This 'rule' was found to apply even in the hardworking community of ants, and bees. Interesting no?
Now we know why there are people out there who get paid to practically do nothing. They are there to make up the 20% inefficiency quota. Now, if only they do not get paid so much money...
posted by Ole' Wolvie @ 11:02 AM
5 Comments:
The 80-20 rules exists for all. I knew about this when I was in school - only need to study 20% to get 80% efficiency and results, whereas if you study 80% you can only get 20% efficiency and results. Kind of hard to see which 20% to study at times. I always end up studying the wrong 20% or worse, the wrong 80%, that's why my results are never good.
But is work the same? Can you just put in 20% and expect 80% worth of results?
Yup...put in your optimum effort 20% of the time, use the rest of the day to moan & groan about how busy you are.
Shakespeare, this rule is slightly different actually. It actually says, whatever people do will *average out* to an 80% efficiency in the end. It is not about putting in 20% effort to get 80% result.
You remember doing group projects in school? In a group of 5 people usually there will be 1 who slacks, and there will be at least another 1 in the group that *cannot tahan* this lazyness and just took the extra load of work.
Hi ole' wolvie,
I wonder: what is we remove the GOOD ones from the group? By the same token, the group would follow the 80-20 rule, and previous slackers would rise up to do better rite?
This is an interesting concept, i think it's true to a certain extent.
That is right.
Eventually, when only 1 person is left, he/she will still do the work, just at a very much slower pace.
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