Applied Motion Study
A Collection Method to industrial Preparedness

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT 179 more in less time, and thus gives us more free time to devote to other activities. Yet we sel- dom, either in conversation or in more careful thinking, fail to confuse habit and monotony. We do not for a moment believe that our every day acts of dressing and eating and walking are tiresome, or lack variety, because we do them the same way every time. Yet, when we come to the industries, and note habits of work there, and find industrial pioneers arguing for standardised habits, we immediately cry “ Monotony/’ and the endless confusion begins. Now, when we attempt to get down to the fun- damentals of the matter we find that the habitual becomes monotonous only when there is no ele- ment of interest in what is being done, and when the higher mental powers that should be set free by habit, because they have nothing to do, go drearily over and over the mechanical acts that demand nothing of real attention. The monot- ony of housework, or farming, or different kinds of industrial work in the plant lies not in the fact that the work is habitual, but that it is uninter- esting. The problem is not to break up habits, but to supply interests.