Lessons from the Book called, 'REWORK'

I have been constantly thinking of new ideas and things i could blog about. At the same time, i have also been thinking of different categories under which i could do blogging - Travelogue, Creative Pedagogy & Volunteering, Reviews or Reflections, and Self Starts.

After pondering for a while regarding the next post, I felt it would be good to write a blog on one of the recent book that I just read. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do a good book review (probably people can share some experiences and possibly a robust template that they have used for doing any book review) and so I decided rather than doing a thorough book review, perhaps I can share my understanding and take away on one of the chapters.

Recently I picked up this book titled, “Rework” by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson from one of the book stores. I have enclosed the front and back cover pages of this book (this would provide you with the look/feel of the book and help you evaluate whether you really want to buy or not). From long ago, my ex colleagues at workplace have been asking me to slow down and stop working long hours (and definitely NOT send emails at 2 or 3 AM), but I didn’t bother and avoided these suggestions as I felt that these are useless suggestions. I kept slogging and did lot of damage to my creativity/productivity/morale and attitude in the process. And then when all this happened, I stumbled upon this book and this particular chapter, “Go To Sleep”. I wondered why didn’t I get this book long time back when I was literary burning mid-night oil!

Never mind ..what is gone is gone and is difficult to get back but we can try to resurrect whatever we are left with. So what are the valuable lessons this particular chapter of the book teaches us. It starts with a caution notice,“forgoing sleep is a bad idea” and ends by saying that one can travel down this adventure path once in a while. But this shouldn’t be made into a regular habit.  The chapter lists down some of the serious cost implications of not sleeping well.

• Stubbornness; Sleep deprivation leads to inability in an individual to think straight and distinguish between the right or wrong. If you are acting stubborn, check whether you are taking adequate sleep or not.

• Lack of creativity: The ability to think creatively reduces drastically in a person who is tired and haven’t slept for a while. In fact the book says and I quote, “what distinguishes people who are 10 times more effective than the norm is not that they work ten times harder; it’s that they use their creativity to come up with solutions that require one-tenth of the effort.

• Diminished Morale: When your brain is tired, it is unable to focus/concentrate and so it starts indulging into not so important tasks (to some extent you start with extreme procrastination).

If you are suffering from any of these symptoms, then you might want to slow down a bit and relax. May be take some time off from work. This way you will not only be doing a great service to your self but also to your organisation.  I can say with conviction that you will return back with strength and power to get the work done.

Things that matters most in life but we tend to ignore them!