Work is what you get done
I should have been doing other stuff instead of that last update. But I've just had a brilliant insight.
Sellar and Yeatman, in their fantastic book 1066 And All That, revolutionised the understanding of History by pointing out that "History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember."
Half a century later, I've had a parallel insight. Work is not what you thought. It is not even what you meant to do. It is what you get done.
All that remains is to expand and apply this insight to the body of management theory, resulting in a short, witty and erudite book that will sell billions and make me widely admired by generations of clever people. But that'll never get done, and hence is not work.
[Update: Forgot that I'd actually written something along these lines already. Maybe I could pad it out to 80 pages by explaining some of the in-jokes a bit more carefully and adding in a few quizzes.]
Sellar and Yeatman, in their fantastic book 1066 And All That, revolutionised the understanding of History by pointing out that "History is not what you thought. It is what you can remember."
Half a century later, I've had a parallel insight. Work is not what you thought. It is not even what you meant to do. It is what you get done.
All that remains is to expand and apply this insight to the body of management theory, resulting in a short, witty and erudite book that will sell billions and make me widely admired by generations of clever people. But that'll never get done, and hence is not work.
[Update: Forgot that I'd actually written something along these lines already. Maybe I could pad it out to 80 pages by explaining some of the in-jokes a bit more carefully and adding in a few quizzes.]