The Best Self-Help is Free: The Importance of Frameworks for Productivity

Chapter 11

This is Chapter 11 of The Best Self-Help is Free, a treatise by Mr. Stolyarov. You can read all chapters of this freely available treatise here.

"Civilization advances by extending the number of important observations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle--they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments."

~ A. N. Whitehead

Because of the human mind's limited ability to hold and process multiple pieces of information simultaneously, a high level of productivity requires reducing the amount of information to be analyzed to only the most essential data. The primitive man must think about every single aspect of his survival: where he is to get his food, how he is to construct his shelter, how he is to ward off hungry predators and malicious fellow men. None of his life is automated; no external mechanisms or institutions exist to render the procurement of his needs any easier or more efficient. As a result, he has little time or energy to spend on fulfilling any but his most basic needs - and he is frequently unable to meet even those.

Such human accomplishments as the division of labor, productive capital in the form of machines, investment and compound interest, the written communication of information, and the development of rules and patterns for human behavior greatly reduce the mental effort required to accomplish any given task - enabling any given individual to move to a higher level of function by thinking only about endeavors which the current institutional framework has not already been able to address or about improving the institutional framework so as to enhance existing time-saving devices.