It breaks my heart when I see a talented person doing stupid work. It’s a shame, really.
A while ago I was visiting one my clients. We spend some time talking about what needs to be done next. Then we’ve got back to an office to get some spatial data, It was in the old version of some well known GIS software.
I was watching him go on a “click frenzy”. It was just like watching a competitive sport. His hand was precisely moving mouse from one place to another. He was trying to mark each item from a long list He was exporting vector layers.
I was watching this spectacle for a few minutes. I finally asked: “Can you just get them all at once?” He was pretty surprised. “It’s impossible” he told me.
It took him like twenty minutes to finish. I know that he cares a lot about his job. You could see it from the way he speaks about it. He looked glad. Mission was accomplished.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about those twenty minutes. I know that he’s also a talented urban planner. Can he spend this time better?
I guess this problem is long gone in the newest version of the software. But we have a lot of those around.
Imagine what you can do instead of doing all those clicks,
Can we somehow make us more aware of those habits? I think we can. And the simplest way of doing it is simply taking short breaks. Often. Look out of the window. Take a deep breath.
Do you feel like that about some of the stuff you’re doing everyday? Tell me in your comment below.