University of Virginia Library

HABIT REDUCES EXHAUSTION

The various acts connected with my morning toilet have been reduced to sheerest habit. I do not think of the different acts as I perform them—they seem to perform themselves. The sequence of the various acts and the manner of performing them are not particularly good, but I do not seem inclined to change them. I put on my left shoe before my right, my right sleeve before my left. I have the absurd habit of washing my teeth after I have washed my face. That my habits may execute themselves automatically, all the articles of my toilet must be in their proper places. I am thwarted in carrying out my habits unless my laundry has been properly placed, unless towels, brushes, etc., are all where they should be. If everything is in its place, I get down to breakfast refreshed and recuperated. If the toilet articles are so located that I am compelled to do consciously what I might have done subconsciously, I get down to breakfast irritated and nervously

depleted. The peace and restfulness of an orderly and systematic household are in part dependent upon the fact that it is only in such a household that we are enabled to turn over to habit the accomplishment of untold recurrent acts.

The experienced accountant can add figures continuously for eight hours a day, and at the end of the day may feel no great exhaustion. The man who has not reduced to habit the necessary steps in addition cannot add continuously for two hours without a degree of exhaustion so great that it paralyzes effort. The same is true with typewriting, telegraphing, and with all forms of manipulations which may be reduced to habit.

The habit of reading in a foreign language is rarely so well established as the habit of interpreting the printed symbols of the mother tongue. Even when I seem to be reading German as easily as English, a few hours spent in reading German is to me much more exhausting than the same amount of time spent

with an English book. Attending lectures delivered in German is to me more exhausting than the same lectures would be if delivered in English.

Work that requires much constructive thinking cannot be continued for many hours a day. This is due to the fact that such thinking does not admit of complete reduction to specific habits. The executive who accomplishes much is the man who has formed many useful habits and who is able to fall back on them for a large part of his work. His decisions are reached in a habitual manner. Investigations take a regular, automatic course. All the details of the office are reduced to mechanical system. No useless energy is spent in giving attention to details that can be better done by habit, and the mind is thus freed from exhaustion and left fresh for attacking the problems arising for solution.

The performance of every new act and the thinking of every new idea is of necessity exhausting, and they become easy to the extent to which they utilize old habits. Although

constructive thinking is most stimulating and exciting, no man can continue it for more than a few hours or a few minutes unless it depends mainly upon old habits.

Some of the most constructive thinkers of the world have been men who could work at their original work for but a few minutes at a time. One brilliant contemporary writer accomplishes most when he works not more than fifteen minutes at a time. Charles Darwin is famous for the originality of his thinking, and hence we are not surprised when we find that he was able to work but three hours out of the twenty-four.