Activities are meaningful and expedient actions that produce something meaningful for the person himself or for other people. This is an expedient, meaningful, serious and multi-component matter, in contrast to entertainment and interests, reflexes and elementary operations.
If a person is walking in the desert and sweating from the heat, this is not an activity, this is a reflex action. But if that person is an actor in a deodorant commercial and he has to sweat in a given scene because the script says so, sweating becomes a completely meaningful action for him and therefore becomes an activity.
The expediency of activity is a question of whether you are moving towards a goal or not. «Is there any reason?» — this is a question of how much (much or not very much) of valuable (necessary, required) you will receive. Purpose refers to goals, meaning to values. If behavior is meaningful and expedient actions for which a person is responsible as their author, then activity is behavior that produces something socially significant. In what a person does, there can be little or a lot of meaning. It is worth moving from meaningless deeds to the expedient (meaningless — worldly meaning (expediency) — meaningful (serving valuable) — mission (in the name of high value)), follow the meaningfulness and ascend to the mission.
Three workers are driving wheelbarrows loaded to the top with stones. Question: What are you doing? The first responded, “Don’t you see? I’m driving these damned stones, hunchbacking!» (I don’t know why. Because they said. Pointless activity). The second said: “I earn money” (I know why — for myself for the sake of money. There is expediency, worldly meaning). I am building a temple (I know in the name of what, for the sake of what high value: mission).
Activities are differentiated based on where (within what) the activity takes place and what the specific activity does. The child plays — they talk about gaming activity, the person is busy with entrepreneurship — they talk about entrepreneurial activity, the rat is looking for a way out of the maze — they talk about search activities.
In addition, according to the form of implementation, internal and external activities, joint, substantive, and so on are distinguished. What is the time frame of the activity? If we are talking about the activities of an individual, then from three minutes to the time of adulthood. A case of less than three minutes is no longer considered a case, and in old age things usually change to summing up and remembering.
Activity is motivated by motives (desires and needs as their representation in the mind), incentives and motivators. See Motivation
Activity is motivated by motives, but is built by setting a goal, a plan, tactics and strategy.
Activities can be divided into stages. As stages, one can single out the process of involvement in activities, the process of goal setting, the process of designing actions, the process of implementing actions, the process of analyzing the results of actions and comparing them with the goals set (self-control). The number and content of the stages that different researchers identify in the activity is determined solely by the tasks and goals of the researcher. Models of activity in this case are built from considerations of convenience, usefulness and sufficiency.
Activity Research
The psychology of activity was actively studied by A. N. Leontiev and S. L. ueshtein. See Activity approach in psychology
Participants of the Moscow Logic Circle and the Moscow Methodological Circle developed a system-thinking activity methodology (SMD-methodology) — a categorical apparatus for researching, organizing and managing systems of thinking and activity.
Man is formed in activity
“Activity shapes a person better than any other means. If a sales representative regularly travels to the territory in order to search for new customers, then “involuntarily” he will become proactive and learn how to easily make contact. Or leave. And if the accountant regularly makes entries in the database, then, whether he wants it or not, he will become punctual. And also demanding: after all, if one of the employees did not provide primary documents on time, then he will have big problems later. Do you know how to quickly remove the fear of the opposite sex? Go outside and meet-meet-meet. Honestly, passionately, without freebies! After a couple of days, you will be able to make contact with anyone, anytime. Tried many times on a variety of people, ”writes Mikhail Rybakov in the book How to Clean Up Your Business.
What are you planning to learn today? What exactly will you do?