One of the most common “comments” about manpacks I’ve seen is that it seems like it’s awfully lazy. Which makes me wonder about these people as they clearly haven’t thought this statement through.
What about that remote control in your hands while you’re watching tv? You can’t walk 5ft to the tv to switch channels?
How about the software you’re reading this on? Why didn’t you just write our own program instead of using someone else’s?
How about something as simple as matches? What was wrong with banging two rocks together to get a spark and start a fire?
Now, I’m not trying to say that Manpacks ranks up there with the invention of the lighter, or toaster or even the remote control for that matter, but humans have a long history of making things that allow us to be a little lazier – I would go so far as to say it’s the very essence and mark of a successful invention.
To be fair, I’m not saying being lazy means not working your ass off, rather I’m saying you need to know when to be lazy so you can increase your efficiency with something else, there are plenty of books and blog posts that back this up (especially in the software development arena) – for me being lazy usually means i can complete more work (work isn’t a dirty word to me, I enjoy what I do – you should too…but that’s another blog post).
The very essence of processes like Getting Things Done (GTD) is to remove items from your brain so you can focus on the things that really require thought – one of those (to us) is to not have to think about buying certain things that we know we always need, are always wearing out, etc. Automating the little stuff to focus on the bigger stuff is a matter of efficiency (ya that’s probably another blog post too).
Manpacks is about being lazy, however, it’s about being lazy in one area so you can focus and be more efficient in another.
This entry was written by , posted on February 6, 2010 at 10:21 am, filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.