Ergonomics. Not Economics.

I do not do yoga. 

I probably should.

But I'm too stiff-necked and old to start.

In any event, after a lifetime in advertising, I've developed two yoga positions that serve me well. And have served me well for over two decades.

But first a bit of employment background.

The best workers divide their job into three parts. 

I learned this back when I was a paperboy in 1968 and 1969. It's sad that jobs like paperboy don't exist anymore, because beyond making $12/week you learned a ton. And you learned to work in a teeming downpour when no one wants to work. Especially if you didn't have parents to drive you around. So you got on your bike, you pedaled your route and you got soaking wet.

No harm done.

Even someone like me eventually dried.

The main thing I learned was the "circuitry" of work. Someone good at their job divides it into three parts, like Caesar did with Gaul. "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres."

1. Finding--getting new customers/clients/subscribers.

2. Minding--keeping current customers happy--answering complaints and fixing issues. Going an extra yard.

3. Grinding--as above, doing your work even when it's like pushing water up-hill.

Most people don't want to do all three. Especially grinding. They hope to "level-up" out of it. They hope to not have to come through when it's crunch-time. There are peons for that, after all. A CCO said to me once, "I don't want to have to crack it anymore." Cracking it takes grinding.

Most jobs permit let you opt out. They blithely separate the grinders from the big wigs, the finders. Nothing could be dumber. The best big wigs I ever worked with were among the best grinders. 

Grinding is a necessary pre-condition for goodness.

If you don't do it you forget how to do it.

Back to yoga positions.

The first move I ever developed was "head-down, hand-up." 

Fig A.
Head down. Hand up.

As long as I've been working, we're always in the middle of a giant deliverable. More often than not because other people would flake, I'd write twelve of the eighteen ads in the deck, and six of the twelve spots. And most of the background, introduction and slideware. I'd keep my head-down and grind work out. Tonnage matters.

My bosses through the years were always under a lot of pressure. When to-do's were parceled out, they'd often have the 12-page or the 8-page manifesto to write. I'd always have my hand-up in the form of a quick email. 'If you wanna pass off half those pages to me, I'm up for it." I had my hand-up. 

I remember a boss coming to me once and saying, "you always have your hand up." That's a good thing.

If you ever wonder how to elevate yourself, how to get better, bigger assignments, raising your hand is one way. I have a catch-phrase that captures me. I turn the assignments nobody wants into the work they wish they did.

That's not a bad way to think about hand-raising.

Fig. B.
Heart. Head. Hand.

The other position is the one that's not allowed in modern ad agencies because it involves not creative "machinery," but actual human thinking.

Since the beginning of human-time, roughly 20,000 years ago to the machine age 175 years ago, all work has involved a synchronization of three parts of your body.

Your heart (what you desire). Your head (how you'll figure it out). Your hand (actually making it). 

I want a plowed field. I can use this scythe. Here's me scything.

Clovis points were humans' primary tools for
almost half of human existence. 

If you think about making clovis points, or weaving a basket, or scything a field, or even writing a song, your heart, head and hand were involved.

Today, in advertising, we've seemed to eliminate the heart--we usually turn to machines and "personas" or archetypes, not empathy. 

We've eliminated the head--data does the thinking for us, or the thinking has been done in a deck. We don't use our heads.

We've eliminated the hands--AI can take a better photo or shoot a better film, or some manipulation of pixels can create something flawless. We forget that our hands make flaws which are what makes work human.

So, as for yoga, once a day, stand as above for a moment. Think about your three Hs. 

And get to work.