High labor productivity comes from high levels of planning

Both the tortoise and the hare were known for their engineering skills and were invited to compete in an engineering competition using lathes. They were given identical drawings, assigned identical lathes, and each given an identical piece of steel in stock.

There was quite a crowd watching. The smart money was in Hare.

Shortly after the competition started, it became clear that Hare was way ahead of Tortuga. The audience was amazed at the speed with which Hare obtained the piece of steel, set up his lathe, selected the tools, and began cutting.

The turtle, on the other hand, seemed to be far behind. He was much slower than Hare, and the audience watched as he carefully examined the drawing, measured the stock steel, and systematically checked the lathe setup before starting it up.

Hare hadn’t bothered to clean up his shavings when he had the lathe cut the bands out of the steel. The Tortoise was making progress, but he was far behind the Hare in completing her work as she carefully cleaned up the accumulated shavings.

Hare continued to best Tortuga, but about halfway through the competition, things began to change. Hare needed to measure the diameter of the working spindle, but he couldn’t find a suitable micrometer. He looked around and finally found a manual one that had been dropped behind a bench. After spending a few moments trying to operate the instrument, he discovered that the micrometer was damaged. He spent some time fiddling with it until he realized that Turtle was catching up.

He put the micrometer down on the bench and went to get another. When she found one that seemed to work properly, she hurried back to the lathe to measure the shaft. When he returned to his lathe, his leg got caught in shavings that he hadn’t cleared away. It was very sharp, cutting his overalls and cutting deep into his leg.

He was unable to finish his work because he spent the next four days injured after his leg was sewn up.

All this time, Tortuga continued to work as before, cleaning up his workplace and putting all his tools back where they belonged. When he finished the competition, he finished on time with a clean work area and accurate work.

Hare, he didn’t finish his work because he was in the hospital being stitched up. His work had to be completed by someone else.

The productive moral of the story is this:

When it comes to being organized, some of the things that seem to slow you down are the same things that make you work faster. High levels of productivity are the result of high levels of planning and organization. Hare’s productivity for that day was low and zero for the next four days as he recovered from his injuries. He will never get those four days back.

The amount of time it takes to stay organized while you work is much less than the amount of time it takes to get organized when you’re in a rush to meet a time goal.

Having a tidy workplace, good systems, all your tools in one place, and a well-designed filing system is an important factor. It will take time to set up and maintain. Sometimes it can even seem like a waste of time. When you’re busy, these are the things that will keep you operating at a high level of productivity.

Every time you are disorganized and have to stop for something, your productivity drops to zero due to the interruption. Even when you’ve found what you’re looking for, it takes time to bring your performance back to the levels it was before the outage.

There is a return on investment of very high productivity from planning and organization.

The practical application of this principle is simple. Train your staff to be methodical, follow systems, and keep the workplace neat and well organized. Measure your performance in these crucial areas and provide feedback frequently.