P_122.doc

HUBBARD COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

                  Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead, Sussex


                       HCO BULLETIN OF 19 AUGUST 1959


               (Re-issued as HCO Policy Letter of 29 May 1963)

CenOCon
SHSBC Students
Franchise
Field

                             HOW TO HANDLE WORK


    Do it Now.

    One of the best ways to cut your work in half is not to do it twice.

    Probably your most fruitful source of Dev-T is your own double work.

    This is the way you do double work.

    You pick up a despatch or a piece of work, look it over and then put  it
aside to do later, then later you pick it up and  read  it  again  and  only
then do you do it.

    This of course doubles your traffic just like that.

    One of the reasons I can handle so much traffic is that I  don't  do  it
twice. I make it a heavy rule that if I find  myself  handling  a  piece  of
traffic, I handle it, not put it into a hold or a later category.

    If I happen to be prowling through my basket in the Message Center Stack
to see what's there, I do what I find there.

    If I am given a message or a datum that requires further action from me,
I do it right when I receive it.

    This is how I buy "loafing time".

    Now I'm not trying to hold me up as a model of virtue  as  the  man  who
always does his job; I do many jobs and many hats; I am  holding  myself  up
as an ambitious loafer and as a buyer of valuable loafing time.

    There's no need to look busy if you are not busy.

    There is no need to fondle and caress work because there isn't enough of
it.

    There's plenty of work to do. The best answer to work of any kind is  to
do it.

    If you do every piece of work that comes your way WHEN it comes your way
and not after a while, if you always take the initiative  and  take  action,
not refer it, you never get any traffic back unless you've got a  psycho  on
the other end.

    In short, the way to get rid of traffic is to do it, not  to  refer  it;
anything referred has to be read by you again, digested again,  and  handled
again, so never refer traffic, just do it so it's done.

    You can keep a comm line  in  endless  foment  by  pretending  that  the
easiest way not to work  is  to  not  handle  things  or  to  refer  things.
Everything you don't handle comes back and bites. Everything you  refer  has
to be done when it comes back to you.

    So if you are truly a lover of  ease,  the  sort  of  person  who  yawns
comfortably and wears holes in heels resting them on  desks,  if  your  true
ambition is one long bout of spring fever, then you'll do as I  suggest  and
handle everything that comes your way when  it  comes  and  not  later,  and
you'll never refer anything to anybody that you yourself can do promptly.

    That people begin to point you out as a  model  of  efficiency,  as  the
thing expected to cop the next world's speed record, that articles begin  to
appear about the marvels you are creating, is  all  incidental.  You  and  I
know we did it so we could be lazy and not have  to  work.  For  it  can  be
truly said that the way to all labor of a long and continuous  grind  is  by
putting off the action when the message is received and in referring it  all
to somebody else, that's the way to slavery, to tired muscles  and  tattered
brains; that's the route to baskets piled high.

    So come loaf with me.

    Do it when you see it and do it yourself.

                                             L. RON HUBBARD
LRH:jw.vmm.rd
Copyright © 1963
by L. Ron Hubbard
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED