9/25/14: 1825.3 to 1831.3 Miles. Scientific Management in Action

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Virtual Hike

Animated Street View

This section of road has wide paved shoulders. It should be fast hiking. The route passes through Waitsburg, Washington near the end of the day.

There is a grocery store about a block west of the route. 

This might be a good place to eat. 

Waitsburg seems to be a tourist town that thrives off people passing through.

Every small town seems to have an annual festival. Waitsburg has a Pioneer Fall Festival in September.

Today's walk
I started at 5 am. There was no moon, so I could barely see. A group of runners from the University passed me on the bicycle trail. I didn't see them coming until they were close. Part of the problem was the light from the GPS was ruining my night vision. I'll have to make a cover for dark areas.

After rolling through a puddle, I decided to make a whimsical design with Wilson's wheels. The little "head" looks like Kilroy. If you don't know who Kilroy was, you are probably younger than I.

Completed Segment 28

Now, the route starts racing east across the top of the country. It's a race against cold weather and snowstorms which are coming soon.

Creativity Flood
I had a flood of creativity as I sat outside Loaf 'N Jug drinking my coffee. Creativity is one of the benefits of walking, and I took advantage of today's floods by making notes in my notebook.

28 Day Challenge - Scientific Management

Scientific Management in Action - Walking Log
The chart shows my running progress. More importantly, each day's entry will show Scientific Management in action. My inputs are miles, but they could be any type of work.  The output is not clear as I haven't stated it. One of the outputs is creative ideas for writing. These come when ready and it is difficult to measure creativity.

I added colored bars for the miles walked. Red bars mean I walked fewer miles than the plan. Green means I walked more. The colors are not a value judgment as it's hard to hit the exact mileage. Each day, I'll adjust the mileage to meet the planned cycle to date miles. I think I'll add a thermometer for the cycle. (Done.)

A fundamental part of Scientific Management is tracking activities. I use a method similar to this to track 20 minute blocks of actual writing. This means when I'm typing. I have an app on my computer that does this. I also track breaks, which are seven minutes long after 20 minutes of writing.

The tracking system I use for writing is on paper. When I'm writing steadily, I do four cycles of 20 minutes of writing followed by a seven minute break. Then I take a half hour break to eat and do another four cycles. The result is 2 hours and 40 minutes of steady writing.

Scientific Management starts with a minutely designed system. Each detail of the system is refined when better methods are found. The way to find improvements is to use the system. A distant think tank that does not see the system in action cannot do it. This is because many improvements are not intuitive.

Management's job is to create the system and management is responsible for the results. Labor's job is to follow the system exactly.