Get Someone Else to Do the Work

One of the most famous scenes from Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, is when Tom has to whitewash a fence as a punishment. His friend Ben Rogers comes along to ridicule him about having to work. Tom ignores him and concentrates on painting, so Ben eventually asks if he likes doing it. Tom replies, “Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?” When Ben asks if he could have a go Tom reluctantly agrees and eventually, he has a gang of boys pay him small amounts for the privilege of painting the fence. It is an example of lateral thinking in action. Tom turned the situation around by persuading Ben and the other boys to feel pleased to get the chance to paint the fence.

In years gone by you had to queue at the airport check-in desk so that the clerk could register your details and print your boarding card. Then someone had a bright idea. Get the passenger to enter all their details on their home computer, choose their seat and print a boarding pass on their home printer. This saved time for passengers without luggage to check. It also saved the airline the task of checking them in. The airline had transferred part of the job to the customer. It was a win-win and became universally adopted as a better practice.

It is reported that wild crows have been enlisted to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets of Stockholm in Sweden. The birds are rewarded with food every time they drop a cigarette butt into a receptacle which includes an automatic peanut dispenser. It is believed that using the birds could save 75% of the current costs of clearing up cigarette butts in the city. The crows are quick leaners and do not eat the rubbish. Experts estimate that crows have the reasoning skills of a seven-year-old child.

Maybe you cannot get a crow, or another animal, or a customer or a gang of boys, to do part of your work, but there is probably someone you can ask. Analyse all the low value tasks that you spend time on and ask whether it would be smarter to get someone else to do the job. Should you be spending time on bookkeeping, website maintenance, arranging appointments or phoning suppliers? Would it be better to pay a specialist to do these jobs while you focus on what you are really good at and get paid for? Even better can you get someone to do it for free – like Tom Sawyer did?

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