Of work hours and learning from the business secrets of the Trappists

Dear Readers,

Hoping to take a much needed break and offer myself some respite, I opted for a part time stint for sometime from April. Well, while I started off on the wrong note by falling ill. But, hopefully next week I should be back at work, albeit part time.

We all tend to feel that even a 10 hour plus work day doesn't seem to be enough, as we are dragged in all sorts of direction. At times, when we see our To Do list at the day's end with things still left to do we wonder where the time flew.


Now, as I was sitting up in bed and seriously wondering whether I would be able to manage all my work within half a day and yet take care of all my responsibilities (even as some have been passed on), I came across this series of articles in Forbes' Women - Business secrets of the Trappists (Monks).


Part 1Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

In Part 1 of this series, the author, August Turak points out that:

"All too often our organizations fail to reach their potential because people spend too much time looking over their shoulders. What is so striking about Mepkin is that the monks are never looking over their shoulders. They are passionately committed and totally focused on the task at hand, and they know that their brothers are doing the same. As a result, they are highly efficient and get an enormous amount done in the four hours a day they dedicate to earning their living."

"Yet if we allow ourselves to be impressed by the monks because they manage to accomplish so much despite their single-minded dedication to their mission, we make a common but cardinal error. It is because of their focus on mission that they operate a multimillion-dollar business with a degree of frictionless efficiency that would drive most profit-driven executives to distraction with envy. And if we are willing to learn from the monks, our secular corporations can do the same."

This sure is food for thought. I guess, unless each one in an organisation thinks on similar lines, the frictionless efficiency cannot be achieved, as we are dependent on each other for our work flows. But, perhaps each of us, can help make a difference.

Happy Reading. I now move on to read Part 2...

Best regards,
Lubna