How to Work Better
The list in the image to the right is a work of a Swiss art due, Peter Fischli and David Weiss (often shortened to Fischli / Weiss).
According to the Channel 4 Big Art Project, Fischli & Weiss created "How to Work Better" in 1991, painting the list on the side of an office building in Zurich, and the artists say that the work is intended as an ironic comment on the corporate motivational sayings that we've all heard. "The obvious irony and banal treatment here helps to make a break with the corporate and reclaim the language of ordinary common sense."
OK. Irony Road may be how the artists arrived at the work, but to this beholder, the list is simply what it is: a wonderfully simple, concise and profound set of instructions for working better and avoiding some of the insanity that the world - working or otherwise - wants to load on us.
This is the image I now have on my laptop desk top:
The most important for me might be #1. I need to do a better job of finishing one thing instead of not finishing lots of things.
Or #6. The day's plans get blown up by 9:30 a.m. on a regular basis. Accept it, and it's a lot easier to deal with.
Or #8. Concision would be a good start.
Or #9. I tend to get worked up when things get nutty. I need to remember the scuba diving lesson and get calmer as things get crazier.
Or #10. This one hurts my heart, because when I'm wrapped up in my work problems I know I don't smile enough at Stacy, Daniel and Madison. And then the moment is lost. But the next moment isn't lost, and I am determined to smile more.
Or all of them.
How about you? Which is the most important to you and why? Let me know by commenting below.