I read this sentence this week, and it made me pause:
In 1931, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary had listed “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective, defining it as “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply.”
And I started thinking about how much I love those Rube Goldberg machines. They really are fun to watch.
And then I started thinking about how complicated they are. They’re needlessly complicated, aren’t they?
And then I started thinking about my own day-to-day workflow, and the unnecessary steps I sometimes throw in when I’m trying to get from A to B on a task. Why do I do that?
And I ended up here: There are jobs where having a Rube Goldberg mind is a plus. Like storytelling. Storytellers have to be able to set those dominos up and then knock ’em down, and the ones who do it right often knock their stories out of the park.
But most of us don’t want to be Rube Goldbergs. We want to move quickly and efficiently. We want to get through the work and onto the next. And the more we set up for ourselves, the more we’re going to have to trudge through to get to the end result.
And it’s the end result that really counts, isn’t it?