email, broadband-equipped home computers and such technological marvels as Virtual Private Networks means that to a corporate network you are as present (absent?) at home as you are in the office—as long as you are logged on and working. Furthermore, many governments are now formally encouraging people to try flexible working, partly in response to the fact that long hours and both parents slogging away in offices aren’t seen to be in line with those family values so dear to politicians.
Few companies have a culture flexible enough to suddenly swallow full-scale flexible working, so don’t try and force it down your particular company’s throat. Try instead to secure yourself just one or two days a week, and make it clear that this means being online and on duty for the whole day or you’ll be perceived as a part timer. If you’re going to argue for a day of home working, then make sure you have agreed goals for that day’s work with your boss. These should be crystal clear and deliverable, rather than vague generalisations about being contactable.
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
Take the initiative with your boss and note down the normal workload you achieve in the office and agree to deliver it from home. But be careful:if you’re not that productive normally, you’ll be bringing this to your boss’ attention. Not a good idea, so prepare the ground first.
25 IT’S NOT A GOD TIME
Franklin actually wants us to reverse the rot and do tomorrow’s work today. At least that’s what he says: ‘Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today’…
That sounds a bit ambitious—until you consider that really it’s a sneaky way of Franklin making his point about procrastination again in a slightly different way. By exhorting us to take on tomorrow’s work today he’s really just trying to strike back at the way work tends to get mugged by that mañana spirit.
DEFINING IDEA …
Procrastination Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.
~ VICTOR KIAM, THE MAN WHO LIKED THE RAZOR SO MUCH HE BOUGHT THE COMPANY
It’s particularly unfair that we opt for a Spanish word to portray procrastination since it’s pretty much a way of life for most of us. In fact in our household I don’t think I would ever get round to doing the washing up if it wasn’t for the occasional writing deadline. Let’s say the washing up is all done, however; you’ve polished the windows, done the ironing and cleaned the mouthpiece of the phone handset. You’re running out of things to do and there is that sneaking suspicion that you might be putting something off. Now is time to try to figure out why.
The most likely reason is that the job in question is one you don’t want to do. It might be hard, it might be scary, but whatever it is you’d rather see if somebody else could make the bad thing go away. That’s natural enough, but instead of waiting and hoping you have to either decide if you’re just being work-shy or whether the putting off is down to a fear that the task is too big to handle. In which case, don’t wait for someone to make it go away; either hire someone to do the job or delegate it to someone else.
First, be honest with yourself about the difference between a genuine decision to delay doing something (because conditions will be more appropriate at a later date) and an irrational postponement.
Then think about these points:
• Consider if you can break the job down into bite-sized morsels and tackle those one at a time.
• Is indecision plaguing you? If so, lay out the criteria as you see them and set a deadline for the decision.
• Afraid of failing? Afraid of success? Try not to focus on the task or your fear but instead onvisualising the finished task and the rewards this will bring either in itself, in time freed for other things or in relief that it’s all over.
• Can you really not be bothered? If you don’t care about it then ask yourself why this task has fallen to you. It
Few companies have a culture flexible enough to suddenly swallow full-scale flexible working, so don’t try and force it down your particular company’s throat. Try instead to secure yourself just one or two days a week, and make it clear that this means being online and on duty for the whole day or you’ll be perceived as a part timer. If you’re going to argue for a day of home working, then make sure you have agreed goals for that day’s work with your boss. These should be crystal clear and deliverable, rather than vague generalisations about being contactable.
HERE’S AN IDEA FOR YOU …
Take the initiative with your boss and note down the normal workload you achieve in the office and agree to deliver it from home. But be careful:if you’re not that productive normally, you’ll be bringing this to your boss’ attention. Not a good idea, so prepare the ground first.
25 IT’S NOT A GOD TIME
Franklin actually wants us to reverse the rot and do tomorrow’s work today. At least that’s what he says: ‘Have you somewhat to do tomorrow, do it today’…
That sounds a bit ambitious—until you consider that really it’s a sneaky way of Franklin making his point about procrastination again in a slightly different way. By exhorting us to take on tomorrow’s work today he’s really just trying to strike back at the way work tends to get mugged by that mañana spirit.
DEFINING IDEA …
Procrastination Procrastination is opportunity’s assassin.
~ VICTOR KIAM, THE MAN WHO LIKED THE RAZOR SO MUCH HE BOUGHT THE COMPANY
It’s particularly unfair that we opt for a Spanish word to portray procrastination since it’s pretty much a way of life for most of us. In fact in our household I don’t think I would ever get round to doing the washing up if it wasn’t for the occasional writing deadline. Let’s say the washing up is all done, however; you’ve polished the windows, done the ironing and cleaned the mouthpiece of the phone handset. You’re running out of things to do and there is that sneaking suspicion that you might be putting something off. Now is time to try to figure out why.
The most likely reason is that the job in question is one you don’t want to do. It might be hard, it might be scary, but whatever it is you’d rather see if somebody else could make the bad thing go away. That’s natural enough, but instead of waiting and hoping you have to either decide if you’re just being work-shy or whether the putting off is down to a fear that the task is too big to handle. In which case, don’t wait for someone to make it go away; either hire someone to do the job or delegate it to someone else.
First, be honest with yourself about the difference between a genuine decision to delay doing something (because conditions will be more appropriate at a later date) and an irrational postponement.
Then think about these points:
• Consider if you can break the job down into bite-sized morsels and tackle those one at a time.
• Is indecision plaguing you? If so, lay out the criteria as you see them and set a deadline for the decision.
• Afraid of failing? Afraid of success? Try not to focus on the task or your fear but instead onvisualising the finished task and the rewards this will bring either in itself, in time freed for other things or in relief that it’s all over.
• Can you really not be bothered? If you don’t care about it then ask yourself why this task has fallen to you. It
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