Stories about productivity
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about productivity from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Don't revise the day beforeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: He tells students not to study in the 24 hours before an exam — go for a walk, eat your favourite food, watch a movie. The last time, at Carmel School (the Jewish school in…
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look I teach this for schools it works at schools it works for sport why can't it work in every other part of your life that's good you tell people before you do an examination for goodness sake don't do any studies the day before 24 hours before the examination just go for a walk eat your favorite food watch a movie for goodness sake do not get out your textbooks and revise and the last time I taught that was at Carmel School here in dianello you know the Jewish school and after telling that just before the year 12s I got a letter back a couple of months later from the principal he never actually came to my talks we said thank you very much we got the highest results in year 12 in the whole of Western Australia we think it's because of you thank you so much I should have kept that that's from the principal it works
- The company that banned overtimeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An English engineering firm Ajahn Brahm remembers as 'Farrell and Sons' wins a best-business-practice prize after trebling turnover and doubling profits in a year — by banning…
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someone sent me this years ago about a company in UK who won a prize for best business practice in that year and I still remember the name called Farrell and Sons. It was an engineering company and in one year they treble turnover, doubled profits. I told this to a few business people. They said, "Well, that's a concern. If you treble turnover and only double the profits, you know, maybe you're just underelling things, but that's still pretty good." And they did this on the simplest of new strategies. They banned all overtime. No one was allowed to work beyond their allotted time. Nor were they allowed to take work home with them. They finish work, go home to your families. Relax. Because that little strategy meant when they went back to their families, their kids saw them, wives, husbands saw them. They had really rich family life and they could relax. So when they had a good sleep at night instead of just working all hours and finishing off some project or some contract or something had a good evening with their family, they went to work the next morning. They were fresh. So they work really well. Yes, they did not spend as much time in the office, but the time they spent there was far more productive because imagine what happens. You know, you may unfortunately have experienced this had a argument with your your wife or your husband, the kids are in trouble at school and you go to work the next day and that's praying on your mind. You can't focus on your job which you're being paid for. You're worried about the family life and that's not going to be very good for the company. Imagine great family life could spend time with them. You go to work mindfocused, fresh, energized, you do really well. So productivity went up even though they weren't spending so many hours at the office. And number two, staff turnover went down to zero.