no putting off. The decision might be to ask for additional facts;it might be to do something or do nothing. But a decision wasreached on each problem before passing on to the next. Mr.
Howell told me that the results were striking and salutary： thedocket was cleared. The calendar was clean. No longer was itnecessary for each member to carry home a bundle of reports. Nolonger was there a worried sense of unresolved problems.
A good rule， not only for the board of directors of U. S. Steel，but for you and me.
Good Working Habit No. 4： Learn to Organise， Deputise， andSupervise.
Many a business man is driving himself to a premature gravebecause he has never learned to delegate responsibility to others，insists on doing everything himself. Result： details and confusionoverwhelm him. He is driven by a sense of hurry， worry， anxiety，and tension. It is hard to learn to delegate responsibilities. I know.
It was hard for me， awfully hard. I also know from experience thedisasters that can be caused by delegating authority to the wrongpeople. But difficult as it is to delegate authority， the executivemust do it if he is to avoid worry， tension， and fatigue.
The man who builds up a big business， and doesn’t learn toorganise， deputise， and supervise， usually pops off with hearttrouble in his fifties or early sixties—heart trouble caused bytension and worries. Want a specific instance? Look at the deathnotices in your local paper.
Chapter 56
How To Banish the Boredom That ProducesFatigue， Worry， and Resentment
One of the chief causes of fatigue is boredom. let’s take thecase of Alice， a stenographer who lives on your street. Alice camehome one night utterly exhausted. She acted fatigued. She wasfatigued. She had a headache. She had a backache. She was soexhausted she wanted to go to bed without waiting for dinner.
Her mother pleaded… She sat down at the table. The telephonerang. The boy friend！ An invitation to a dance！ Her eyes sparkled.
Her spirits soared. She rushed upstairs， put on her Alice—bluegown， and danced until three o’clock in the morning; and whenshe finally did get home， she was not the slightest bit exhausted.
She was， in fact， so exhilarated she couldn’t fall asleep.
Was Alice really and honestly tired eight hours earlier，when she looked and acted exhausted? Sure she was. She wasexhausted because she was bored with her work， perhaps boredwith life. There are millions of Alices. You may be one of them.
It is a well-known fact that your emotional attitude usuallyhas far more to do with producing fatigue than has physicalexertion. A few years ago， Joseph E. Barmack， Ph.D.， publishedin the Archives of Psychology a report of some of his experimentsshowing how boredom produces fatigue. Dr. Barmack put a groupof students through a series of tests in which， he knew， they couldhave little interest. The result? The students felt tired and sleepy，complained of headaches and eyestrain， felt irritable. In somecases， even their stomachs were upset. Was it all “imagination”？
No. Metabolism tests were taken of these students. These testsshowed that the blood pressure of the body and the consumptionof oxygen actually decrease when a person is bored， and that thewhole metabolism picks up immediately as soon as he begins tofeel interest and pleasure in his work！
We rarely get tired when we are doing something interesting andexciting. For example， I recently took a vacation in the CanadianRockies up around Lake Louise. I spent several days trout fishingalong Corral Creek， fighting my way through brush higher than myhead， stumbling over logs， struggling through fallen timber—yetafter eight hours of this， I was not exhausted. Why? Because I wasexcited， exhilarated. I had a sense of high achievement： six cutthroat trout. But suppose I had been bored by fishing， then how doyou think I would have felt? I would have been worn out by suchstrenuous work at an altitude of seven thousand feet.
Even in such exhausting activities as mountain climbing，boredom may tire you far more than the strenuous work involved.
For example， Mr. S. H. Kingman， president of the Farmers andMechanics Savings Bank of Minneapolis， told me of an incidentthat is a perfect illustration of that statement. In July， 1943， theCanadian government asked the Canadian Alpine Club to furnishguides to train the members of the Prince of Wales Rangers inmountain climbing. Mr. Kingman was one of the guides chosento train these soldiers. He told me how he and the other guides—
men ranging from forty-two to fifty-nine years of age—tookthese young army men on long hikes across glaciers and snowfields and up a sheer cliff of forty feet， where they had to climbwith ropes and tiny foot-holds and precarious hand-holds. Theyclimbed Michael’s Peak， the Vice-President Peak， and otherunnamed peaks in the Little Yoho Valley in the Canadian Rockies.
After fifteen hours of mountain climbing， these young men， who were in the pink of condition （they had just finished a six-weekcourse in tough commando training）， were utterly exhausted.
Was their fatigue caused by using muscles that had not beenhardened by commando training? Any man who had ever beenthrough commando training would hoot at such a ridiculousquestion！ No， they were utterly exhausted because they werebored by mountain climbing. They were so tarred， that manyof them fell asleep without waiting to eat. But the guides—menwho were two and three times as old as the soldiers—were theytired? Yes， but not exhausted. The guides ate dinner and stayedup for hours， talking about the day’s experiences. They were notexhausted because they were interested.
When Dr. Edward Thorndike of Columbia was conductingexperiments in fatigue， he kept young men awake for almosta week by keeping them constantly interested. After muchinvestigation， Dr. Thorndike is reported to have said： “Boredomis the only real cause of diminution of work.”