Two days ago I embarked on an 878km road trip up to my parents place with my boyfriend, and I thought of a good idea. All along the highway we drove (and I assume most of the long highways out there would be like this too) there were anti-fatigue slogans posted every now and again, which were all fine and good, but after a while you started to ignore them and I suppose that’s where the fatigue would likely settle in – especially for truck drivers. I mean, ‘Stop. Revive. Survive’ and ‘Only sleep can cure fatigue’ get pretty un-inspirational after a while. I don’t even remember the rest of them, but I guess that makes my point.
So how could we fix this? My mind started working (and we had hours and hours ahead of us at this point so I was in no rush), and thought of something that would work pretty well, and wouldn’t cost much!
My idea was to set up LED signs (much like the all too familiar ‘roadworks ahead’/’detour’ signs we’ve all seen before), but rather than boring-although-concise messages, they would have a very simple puzzle on them, a one-liner riddle of sorts, or even jokes! Something easy enough to remember, but not simple enough to guess straight away. The LED signs would be paired, and the answer to each riddle would be 10 or 15km down the road – ample time to think about what the answer might be!
This idea kind of relies on most people’s minds working like mine does. Over the years I’ve slowly grown out of being a morning person, so instead I have my phone nearby, and when I know I need to or want to wake up I grab it and start reading, be it tweets or texts or anything really. It’s the fact that my mind is being woken up, my body soon follows and I don’t feel tired anymore.
I reckon I’m not alone in this. It’s all too common to hear someone say they’re going to bed in a minute or so because they’re tired, only to see them stay up for hours because they found something interesting which kick-started their brain again.
If you can spare half a minute to comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
The Social Chameleon 