Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Some simple life advice: eat, rest, work – in that order.

Fatigue is a killer to accomplishing anything; hunger is a killer to accomplishing anything.

Trying to accomplish anything while tired and hungry? Not much chance of accomplishing anything positive while a very high chance of accomplishing a mess.

When I am tired, I should rest. When I am hungry (real hunger), I should eat. After I am rested and fed, I can work. I should not attempt work in weakened states.

“But,” here it comes, “I am tough. I can do it.”  I have heard that countless times. I have seen people charge into work in weakened states. The results were predictable.

Here is an old story:

A computer programmer came to work and worked hard for six hours. The programmer accomplished a lot of work. Great. The programmer felt guilty because there were two hours left in the work day, and the programmer had to continue working. The programmer was elated because of accomplishment, but was also exhausted. Guilt overcame exhaustion, and the programmer worked for two more hours. In those last two hours, the programmer made dozens of mistakes, so many mistakes that the programmer needed to work hard the next four days to find and fix the errors.

Oh well. Don’t work into those two hours exhausted. Rest. Work again tomorrow.