| Sharpen Your Axe
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening an axe. –Traditional Saying
A young lumberman is given the task of chopping down some trees. The first day, with a sharp axe and lots of strength he chops down 10 trees. The second day, he works just as hard, but only chops down 8 trees. The third day only five trees come down. Finally, an old man passing by asks,
“Why don’t you stop and sharpen your axe?”
“I can’t,” Says Mike, “I’m too busy chopping down trees.”
The truth is usually that simple. Stop for a moment and take a look at some ways you can sharpen your axe:
- Learn how to make your computer do more than the basics
- Program your phone to automatically dial often-used numbers
- Enroll in an executive training program at a well-regarded business school
- Read publications in your field that you don’t have to read
- Attend conferences and workshops
- Learn another language
- Take a night course in a subject you’ve always been interested in and never had the time to pursue.
Always be on the lookout for ways to sharpen your axe—don’t hold on to any slow antiquated ideas or machines when reliable, faster technology is available. Don’t be like the CEO who would not replace transparencies and an overhead projector with a PowerPoint presentation. It literally took his staff months to get him to change. Now of course, he would never go back to the old way—but think of the time he could have saved just by ‘sharpening his axe’ sooner.
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