Work while you work

This is a story that I heard from someone's speech in a video long back.

There were two teams namely Team A and Team B with equal number of people( say 10 each). Both teams were given a task of cutting the wooden logs. Wooden logs are nothing but the huge trunk blocks of a tree. The stipulated time was one hour. The number of wooden logs, equipment required to chop the blocks and all pre-requisites happened to be the same to both the these teams. At the end of an hour, the team that has chopped the highest number of the wooden logs would be the winner.

So, after the event has started, both teams engaged themselves with fullest potential to chop the wood at a faster pace. Everybody were in the rush to cut the logs into proper pieces. They have been sweating their whole energy. After 30 minutes of time, both teams were asked to take ten minutes of break and get back to their work. Team A wasn't much interested and continued with their work thereby ignoring the interval. Team B opted for the break and resumed their work after ten minutes.

So, the teams completed their tasks after toiling so hard and the competition came to an end finally. But to the surprise, the winner of the event was Team B that took ten minutes break and not Team A that was working tirelessly throughout the time.

This is because Team B sharpened their materials that became blunt because of continuous usage. Also they tried to revive the drained energy by refreshing themselves. So with sharp minds and sharp-edged machineries, they resumed their task and minced the logs with greater efficiency.

Not always hard work can fetch fruitful results. There are times that require us to act smart in order to make things fall at its place. There are many that believe working for 24*7 can only yield best results and they also tend to forget that the person who is put into such a situation will be like a horse running in a race. He is a world trapped within him and he has no other option left other than thinking about work.

So stop being one dimensional and come out of the box. All it requires a bit of common sense to do so.