they come into their own when it comes to reclaiming dead time. The exec calmly ordering emails while waiting in line would be an enviable sight if it wasn’t for the fact that you know they’ll still be doing emails late at night. You don’t need technology to thwart time thieves, though. Just be prepared. Read those briefing notes, take notes of your own, just make sure you’re never ever sitting/standing there with nothing to do but wait.
Individual time thieves are both more insidious and easier to deal with.
Insidious, because you may not even notice that they’re stealing your life, but easier to deal with because (unlike institutions) you have the power to shape their behaviour. Some thieves are deliberate—they’re trying to hijack your time so they have less to do themselves. More often, though, thieves don’t even realise they’re doing it—like the insecure colleague who insists on talking through all their dilemmas in the hope that you’ll make up their mind for them, or the person who wants to talk about some meeting you’re only peripherally involved in but which is very important to them.
In which case don’t just nod and watch your own time slip away—explain in a friendly but firm way that you have a rush job right now but what they’re saying sounds very important, so they should jot down the key points in an email/memo for you and you’ll look at it. This does two things. The first is that true time thieves will never actually write down their musings because it seems like work, and the second is that deliberators will often come to their own conclusions when they set their thoughts down on paper (or screen).
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
If someone wants to talk about a document, development or agenda insist they send it to you first. If you allow them to discuss it before you see it, they’ll try to paint the whole thing in their own words (needlessly, since it already exists) or colour it with their agenda.
24 MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR WORKING WEEK
‘Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure,’ said Benjamin and I, for one, take that to mean don’t spend days of your life sitting in rock-solid traffic.
Let’s presume for a moment that your work is rewarding, challenging and deeply pleasurable with nary a wasted moment. It’s a stretch I know, but work with me. Even if all the above is true then it’s pretty much a certainty that there’s one major part of your working day that is, at best, dead time…the commute.
DEFINING IDEA …
Companies today cannot afford to ignore the issue of work/life balance. Providing employees with the flexibility to address personal commitments, without compromising the needs of the business, can make the difference between a good working environment and a great one.
~ DIANE DOMEYER, DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST TEMPORARY STAFF AGENCY
Naturally there will be somebody out there who is carried to work in a sedan chair borne aloft by a bevy of attractive members of the opposite sex. That person is disagreeing with this right now. For the rest of us, crammed into late trains or sitting in traffic, the commute is one of the worst parts of the day. It doesn’t take long to do the maths. If you spend about a hour each way getting to work then you’re losing the equivalent of a working day a week sitting, stressing, swearing—and, what’s even worse, paying for the privilege. So how about working from home instead?
Strictly speaking, I’d advise you to avoid the phrase ‘working from home’ because to management ears that sounds indistinguishable from the ‘food poisoning’ so often suffered on Monday mornings. Indeed the biggest single problem of anyone who wants to stop wasting their time on transport is that they are immediately seen as a time waster. It’s as if you have to pay your dues with hours of cramped travel in order to be seen to really want your job.
That doesn’t have to be the case, however. The advent of
Individual time thieves are both more insidious and easier to deal with.
Insidious, because you may not even notice that they’re stealing your life, but easier to deal with because (unlike institutions) you have the power to shape their behaviour. Some thieves are deliberate—they’re trying to hijack your time so they have less to do themselves. More often, though, thieves don’t even realise they’re doing it—like the insecure colleague who insists on talking through all their dilemmas in the hope that you’ll make up their mind for them, or the person who wants to talk about some meeting you’re only peripherally involved in but which is very important to them.
In which case don’t just nod and watch your own time slip away—explain in a friendly but firm way that you have a rush job right now but what they’re saying sounds very important, so they should jot down the key points in an email/memo for you and you’ll look at it. This does two things. The first is that true time thieves will never actually write down their musings because it seems like work, and the second is that deliberators will often come to their own conclusions when they set their thoughts down on paper (or screen).
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
If someone wants to talk about a document, development or agenda insist they send it to you first. If you allow them to discuss it before you see it, they’ll try to paint the whole thing in their own words (needlessly, since it already exists) or colour it with their agenda.
24 MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR WORKING WEEK
‘Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure,’ said Benjamin and I, for one, take that to mean don’t spend days of your life sitting in rock-solid traffic.
Let’s presume for a moment that your work is rewarding, challenging and deeply pleasurable with nary a wasted moment. It’s a stretch I know, but work with me. Even if all the above is true then it’s pretty much a certainty that there’s one major part of your working day that is, at best, dead time…the commute.
DEFINING IDEA …
Companies today cannot afford to ignore the issue of work/life balance. Providing employees with the flexibility to address personal commitments, without compromising the needs of the business, can make the difference between a good working environment and a great one.
~ DIANE DOMEYER, DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST TEMPORARY STAFF AGENCY
Naturally there will be somebody out there who is carried to work in a sedan chair borne aloft by a bevy of attractive members of the opposite sex. That person is disagreeing with this right now. For the rest of us, crammed into late trains or sitting in traffic, the commute is one of the worst parts of the day. It doesn’t take long to do the maths. If you spend about a hour each way getting to work then you’re losing the equivalent of a working day a week sitting, stressing, swearing—and, what’s even worse, paying for the privilege. So how about working from home instead?
Strictly speaking, I’d advise you to avoid the phrase ‘working from home’ because to management ears that sounds indistinguishable from the ‘food poisoning’ so often suffered on Monday mornings. Indeed the biggest single problem of anyone who wants to stop wasting their time on transport is that they are immediately seen as a time waster. It’s as if you have to pay your dues with hours of cramped travel in order to be seen to really want your job.
That doesn’t have to be the case, however. The advent of
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