University of Virginia Library

HABIT SHORTENS THE TIME NECESSARY FOR A THOUGHT OR AN ACT

Human efficiency depends in part upon the rapidity with which we are able to accomplish our tasks. It is surprising to us all when we find how rapidly we can accomplish our habitual acts and how slowly we perform the tasks to which we are compelled to give specific attention.

I find that I can repeat the twenty-six letters of the alphabet in two seconds. I do not give attention to the order of the letters) but all I seem to do is to start the process, and then it says itself. If, however, I attempt to pronounce the alphabet backward, my first attempt takes a full minute. If I attempt to say the alphabet forward but to insert after each letter a single syllable, such as "two," it takes sixteen seconds. Thus, a 2, b 2, C 2, d 2, etc., requires eight times as many seconds as the simple alphabet, a, b, c, d, e, etc. The sequence which has become most perfectly habitual requires but two seconds; the process which employs the old habit in part requires sixteen seconds; but the act which has never been reduced to a habit at all (repeating the alphabet backward) requires at least sixty seconds.

Some time ago I could pick out the letters on a typewriter at the rate of about one per second. Writing is now becoming reduced to a habit, and I can write perhaps three letters a second. When the act has been

reduced to the pure habit form, I shall be writing at the rate of not less than five letters per second.

I can send a telegraph message at a rate but little faster than one contact per second. Those who have reduced the transmission of messages to a habit are capable of making twelve contacts per second.

In multiplying one three-place number by another I have the fixed habit of writing the multiplier under the multiplicand, the partial products under these, and the final product beneath all. If I reverse all these positions, the multiplying should be no more difficult, but as a matter of fact this simple reversal increases the time of operation about eighty-five per cent. All mathematical operations are rapid in proportion to the degree to which they are habitual.

The speed of thought is slow unless it follows the old creases and the old grooves. No adequate speed is possible so long as attention must be given to the succeeding stages of the thought or act. This is true of all acts and

of all thoughts, whether in the home or upon the street, in the shop or in the office.

Great speed of thought and action must not be confused with hurried thought and action. Speed which is habitual is never hurried. There are many acts of skill which can be done much more easily if performed rapidly than if performed slowly. When working hurriedly, there is a speeding up of all movements whether necessary or unnecessary; but the speed secured from correct habits is primarily dependent upon the elimination of useless movements and the concentration of energy at the essential point.