forty-seven tons per day! He figured that they ought to do almost four times as much as
they were doing, and not be exhausted. But prove it!
Taylor selected a Mr. Schmidt who was required to work by the stop-watch. Schmidt
was told by the man who stood over him with a watch: "Now pick up a 'pig' and walk. ...
Now sit down and rest. ... Now walk. ... Now rest."
What happened? Schmidt carried forty-seven tons of pig-iron each day while the other
men carried only 12 1/2 tons per man. And he practically never failed to work at this
pace during the three years that Frederick Taylor was at Bethlehem. Schmidt was able
to do this because he rested before he got tired. He worked approximately 26 minutes
out of the hour and rested 34 minutes. He rested more than he worked-yet he did almost
four times as much work as the others! Is this mere hearsay? No, you can read the
record yourself in Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor.
Let me repeat: do what the Army does-take frequent rests. Do what your heart does-rest
before you get tired, and you will add one hour a day to your waking life.
Chapter 24: What Makes You Tired-and What You Can Do About It
Here is an astounding and significant fact: Mental work alone can't make you tired.
Sounds absurd. But a few years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human
brain could labour without reaching "a diminished capacity for work", the scientific
definition of fatigue. To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood
passing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If you took blood
from the veins of a day labourer while he was working, you would find it full of "fatigue
toxins" and fatigue products. But if you took a drop of blood from the brain of an Albert
Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins whatever at the end of the day.
So far as the brain is concerned, it can work "as well and as swiftly at the end of eight or
even twelve hours of effort as at the beginning". The brain is utterly tireless. ... So what
makes you tired?
Psychiatrists declare that most of our fatigue derives from our mental and emotional
attitudes. One of England's most distinguished psychiatrists, J.A. Hadfield, says in his
book The Psychology of Power: "the greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is
of mental origin; in fact exhaustion of purely physical origin is rare."
One of America's most distinguished psychiatrists, Dr. A.A. Brill, goes even further. He
declares: "One hundred per cent of the fatigue of the sedentary worker in good health is
due to psychological factors, by which we mean emotional factors."
What kinds of emotional factors tire the sedentary (or sitting) worker? Joy?
Contentment? No! Never! Boredom, resentment, a feeling of not being appreciated, a
feeling of futility, hurry, anxiety, worry-those are the emotional factors that exhaust the
sitting worker, make him susceptible to colds, reduce his output, and send him home
with a nervous headache. Yes, we get tired because our emotions produce nervous
tensions in the body.
The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company pointed that out in a leaflet on fatigue: "Hard
work by itself," says this great life-insurance company, "seldom causes fatigue which
cannot be cured by a good sleep or rest. ... Worry, tenseness, and emotional upsets are
three of the biggest causes of fatigue. Often they are to blame when physical or mental