There was a newly joined woodcutter and the king was really impressed by his dedication towards his work. Out of encouragement, he started giving his best at work and in the first month managed to cut down 18 trees, which impressed the King. The following month the same effort only yielded 15 trees, and the third month, his best effort only gave him 12 trees. The king visited him and spoke to him about his decreased productivity.
He explained that he might have lost his strength or have gotten too old to do the work. The king asked him “when was the last time you sharpened your axe?” To his surprise, he realized that he had not sharpened it once in the last 3 months! That was the only reason why he couldn’t cut more trees.
The moral of the story is, it is good that you put in a lot of effort and hard work towards achieving your goals, but you should balance your life priorities by investing enough time with your family as well as personal time to relax and rejuvenate yourself, which would boost up your productivity. [read more]