Mouse-Milking at Work

Have you ever tried to milk a mouse?  I am sure most of us have not, at least in the real sense, and what would take so long to do really would not produce much for the effort.  Yet this is what we do many times at work without knowing it, or maybe we do, but we do not call it mouse-milking.  So what is the definition of mouse-milking?  Well, way back when, the term was used by judges when attorneys would have long drawn out fights for trivial points and thus the phrase “de minimis non curat lex” which means “the law does not concern itself with trifles or things of little importance.”  So how does this relate to the workplace of today?  Mouse-milking in the workplace means “doing a task that requires a great deal of effort resulting in very little return.”  Many times we do tasks that require much time and produce very little, but many times we also make our everyday tasks require more time than what they really need, thus wasting time by our own choice when we could be moving along and accomplishing more and are not.  For example talking about a problem that has come up in the office over and over (wearing the problem out) instead of coming up with a solution and taking care of it and moving forward.  Another example is keeping work on your desk that could be delegated to others who have the time to complete it, but you don’t so that you can do it, thus it takes much longer for the work to get done, which could mean poorer service.  And a final example of knowing that you have tasks that are a priority, but you find other smaller tasks to do instead of just jumping in and tackling the one that needs to be done.  The bottom line is we are doing exactly what that age-old saying said, “we put things off for tomorrow (or later) what we could be getting done today.”  Dragging our feet in our day-to-day tasks will eventually take its toll on us, our team and our companies service to our customers.  Don’t milk the mouse when you can be moving mountains at work.  Get done today what needs to be done and tomorrow do it again.

#greatcustomerservice #officemanagement #procrastination #workingefficientlytogether