WHO MAKES THINGS

Who makes things?

A person makes something, and thereby produces.

The individual may act alone, or as part of a group of people with a common product, but after everything else is said, it is a single person who produces.

Ask anyone what they do and they will tell you their title. But ask them what they make, or produce, and you will get a very confusing answer. Often they won’t know.

They may know what their organization makes, but they themselves may not think of what they do as making anything.

Besides not recognizing the fact that we don’t make anything but only remake raw products, we also do not think of most of our jobs as making anything.

What if each of us begins to ask ourselves, even if our bosses won’t, “What do I make?” Can we answer that question? If not, we are not producing.

How do you make something?

Ask any artisan how to make something and they will be glad to tell you. They are proud of their skill.

If you ask them how to acquire the skill they will tell you to make something using that skill. Duh!

Make something. Work at it every day. At the same time. All day if you can. Work at it for 20 minutes if not. Just show up and make something.

Sounds way too easy, huh?

So once you know what you make, could you make sure that you make it at least once every day.

Why we like to believe that producing is hard?

Is producing hard? Sure. Is it simple? Yes!

We like to think that raising production is difficult so that we have a reason to not produce. It also gives us a reason to feel good about what we do get done.

We like to think that what we do is hard and hard things have value. But the more we convince ourselves that it is hard the more we may dread doing it. We don’t like to do hard things.

If producing takes sweat, time, concentration, effort, or patience we have a lot of reasons to not do it. It isn’t easy. Easy is the opposite of hard.

But it is simple. Once you know what you produce and how to do it, it just means “do it”. Every day. All day. As much as you can. Put off the title to your job as much as possible and produce what you produce.

Man, I hate that.