Productivity Lessons From Thomas Edison

Hard work and persistence

Thomas Alva Edison, American inventor and businessman who gave the world more than 1000 inventions and received more than 4000 patents, is considered one of the most productive scientists in world history.

According to eyewitnesses, Edison worked on average 18 hours a day and preferred to work at night, when, in his own words, "the rest of the world is asleep."

The case when one of the inventions of Edison - electric typewriter - did not work. Along with five assistants Edison locked himself in the studio, saying he did not come out as long as bring his creation to working condition. After that, he worked 60 hours without breaks and sleep, resolve the problem in the machine, and then slept for 30 hours straight.

Work habits Thomas Edison

Do something - not to work. The goal of any work is production or accomplishment result, to whom accompanies the preliminary calculation, system, planning, meaningful, worthy purpose, and work up a sweat.

Thomas Edison

The famous American psychologist and writer Orison Marden Soweto in one of his books

How They Succeeded: Life Stories of Successful Men and Women Told by Themselves It brings an interview in which the great inventor shares the secrets of his productivity. In the words of Edison, at the time he was working not so much - only 14-15 hours a day. From eight in the morning he worked in the laboratory, at six in the evening coming home "for tea", and then continued his studies at home and went to bed at 11. On Marden goggles remark that the 14-hour working day - is not exactly what made saying "not so much," Edison said that prior to this, he spent 15 years working for 20 hours day.

When Edison turned 47 years old, he has calculated that if you divide all the time he spent working on the standard eight hours a day, his age would have been in '82.

According to the scientist, his work was no place for random, except, perhaps, the phonograph. Edison was engaged only in those developments, the outcome of which seemed to him useful and commercially viable. He did not waste time at the spectacular, but useless toys, the only value of which - their innovation.

Eighteen-time - not too high a price for success? From the perspective of Edison did.

If you get up at seven and go to bed at eleven, is still 16 hours, during which you are doing something. You walk, read, write, meditate. The difference is that most people focus their efforts on many different things, and I - on one. Everyone could succeed if devoted all his time to the same goal.

Thomas Edison

The problem with this approach, according to the inventor, lies in the fact that not everyone has such a goal - the only thing for which a person is willing to give up everything else. Success according to Edison - a product of a severe, uncompromising use of mental and physical abilities in the same direction.

In addition, Thomas Edison meticulously recorded and illustrated all the stages of their development. After the death of 3500 was found scientist notebooks and many individual records, totaling more than 5 million documents. The habit of meticulously capture on paper every detail of his work - still one of the most important secrets of Edison's success.

If each of us did everything I was capable of, we would be shocked themselves.

Thomas Edison