Thought For The Dat- 16th July-2008

To Work Faster and Better
How to do work faster and better?

An answer from the Mother :
"..... it is a very interesting subject and I wanted to speak to you about it in detail..... generally when men are in a hurry, they do not do completely what they have to do or they do badly what they do. Well, there is a third way, it is to intensify one's concentration. If you do that you can gain half the time, even from a very short time. Take a very ordinary example: to have your bath and to dress; the time needed varies with people, doesn't it? But let us say, half an hour is required for doing everything without losing time and without hurrying. Then if you are in a hurry, one of two things happen; you don't wash so well or you dress badly. But there is another way - to concentrate one's attention and one's energy, think only of what one is doing and not of anything else, not to make a movement too much, to make the exact movement in the most exact way, and ( it is an experience lived, I can speak of it with certitude) you can do in fifteen minutes what you were formerly doing in half an hour, and do it it well, at times even better, without forgetting anything, without leaving out anything, simply by the intensity of the concentration.... For all that you do - study, play, work - there is only one solution : to increase one's power of concentration...."
The Mother remarks elsewhere -
".....if you want to do something well, what ever it may be.... you must become what you are doing and not remain a small person looking at himself doing it... Take a very amusing instance: you want to fill a bottle from another bottle; you concentrate (you may try it as a discipline...); well, as long as you are the bottle to be filled, the bottle from which one pours, and the movement of pouring, as long as you are only this, all goes well. But if unfortunately you think at a given moment: "Ah! it is getting on well, I am managing well,' the next minute it spills over! .... That is why work is a good means of discipline, for if you want to do the work properly, you must become the work instead of being someone who works.... For if truly you want to do it (the work) well, this is the only way of doing it.."