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Quality and Zen

Did you ever think that the book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, was about quality?

While transferring my bookmarks from my Opera or Firefox browsers to my del.icio.us bookmarks, I came across the XIO ideas toolbox. Many of the links in my browsers are old, and I cannot remember why I bookmarked them in the first place. As usual, I investigated this link to see what it was all about. One of the ideas in the toolbox set my braincells into high gear. Gumptionology 101.

Wow. The article shows how the author, Robert Pirsig, discusses quality in Zen. This is what I consider “a sign”. I never read the book when it first came out, despite good friends raving about it. I put it on my Christmas wish-list a few years ago, trying to catch up on the books “one ought to read”. I keep it dusted while it waits its turn to be read. (Too many books are queued up to be read!) I also happen to be extremely curious about quality as it applies to work processes. I have recently read The Goal and It’s Not Luck because of this curiosity.

I think I need to pull Zen off the shelf and get it read now. Now I need to put that speed-reading course to good use!

PS Thanks to Tom Graves for the great XIO toolbox idea. Definitely worth emulating.