Save 100s of Hours of Work by Sharpening the Saw

How often do you sharpen the saw?

Sharpening the saw is a term Stephen R. Covey uses in 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It basically means working on improving yourself and your skills and therefore becoming more productive and efficient.

Taking time out from whatever you do to sharpen the saw is essential. Not only will you enjoy the process and the break from work, but it also is much more effective than working. This is because if you keep learning how to be more productive the time you spend learning and not working will pay itself off in the future by your increase in productivity.

Let's look at an rough example why this is true.

Lifestyle A
You solidly work 10 hours a day, 5 or 6 days a week for 10 years and you get quite far. However, the value you are generating per hour with that work will probably not increase too much over those 10 years. You'll gain a lot of experience but you will probably not become a LOT more effective than when you started.

Lifestyle B
Say you work 5 or 6 hours a day, 5 days a week for 10 years you would initially think you would not have gained as much. However, if you take those extra 4 or 5 hours a day and use them to "sharpen the saw" then you will be making yourself much more effective and skillful. After a year of following this process the value you can produce in an hour is likely to be more than double that if you had just worked solid for a year.

By following lifestyle B, the time you are taking "not working" is actually means you produce more than if you did spend all that time working.

The above are two extreme examples, but does this help you realise the improvement you could make to your life if you made the change? This INVESTMENT of taking time off working to sharpen the saw could eventually save yourself a lot of hard work in the future and is often the difference between those who work hard all their life and still struggle and those who work smart, have anything they want and love life.