how we make things work.
We finish a day’s work exhausted, burnt out, bone tired. If we were asked to keep going, it would be a stretch — nor a healthy thing. Do we go home to rest? Do we take a nap, rejuvenate and refuel? No, most of us don’t. An hour or two later, you’ll find us out dancing, playing ball, or at the gym lifting weights.
Many of the sports and activities that we do for fun require more physical and mental energy than what we need to invest to get through a work day. Yet, they don’t wear us out nearly as much, and in some cases, they pick us back up.
How is that? It’s no surprise that it has to do with how we think about work.
The Game of Life
Years ago, Charles A. Coonradt tested his idea by turning work tasks into measurable self-competing contests — games that could be won. Folks were asked to weigh the paper they filed every day. Within 3 weeks, a department that had overdue filing for 3 years was ahead and found itself with 3 hours extra each day. The people in the department asked for more work — new work — that they could measure that way. [He called his book, The Game of Work.]
Sometimes I use this technique to get myself to conquer tasks I’m not fond of doing. Today I’m wondering what life would be like if I took the same approach to everything I do?
Have you thought about that? What problem would be easier if you thought of it as one more level, challenge, quest, in the game of life?
