You get to work early, you stay late. You feel accomplished for your 50, 60 or even 80 hour workweeks. No one gets more done than you.
Or do they.....
The research I found on this topic took my opinion of working hours and spun it on it's head.
I used to think working long hours was the only way to live. I honestly thought that people who worked less than 40 hours a week were lazy and, quite frankly, misguided.
But, a Stanford University study conducted by John Pencavel found that employee output drops dramatically after 55 hours and apparently if you put in an extra 15 hours on top of your 55 you produce absolutely nothing extra.
I had to know more. Was this limited to long hours or was the 8 hour day also tainted?
An article from Inc. magazine, found that "In an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes."
You read that correctly.
Why do we waste tremendous amounts of time when we claim to be the busiest generation on record?
The Obvious Culprits:
Your Phone
You know you love that buzz, ding or screen flash you get when someone messages you, likes a post of yours or even the reminder on your calendar that you have a meeting in 15 minutes.
This is eating your time away like a cancer. Why? Because you are addicted to the dopamine fix. In her article, Why We're All Addicted to Texts, Twitter and Google, Dr. Susan Weinschenk describes what is know as the "dopamine loop."
"It's easy to get in a dopamine induced loop. Dopamine starts you seeking, then you get rewarded for the seeking which makes you seek more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting, or stop checking your cell phone to see if you have a message or a new text."
Time Reclaim: Turn off as many notifications on your phone as possible. You can go into each app and control the notifications or you can simply put your phone in do not disturb mode but set a few key phone numbers to notification status (think caregivers and spouses).
If you're in sales simply turn off the notifications to apps and leave the ringer on but set designated hours for even this to be turned off, especially when in meetings with clients.
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour
The Conversation With Your Coworker
According to an Inc. Magazine article this is eating up 40 minutes of your day. When a productive day only consists of 2 hours and 53 minutes, this 40 minutes becomes crucial.
Time Reclaim: We all need to blow off steam and I'm as guilty as the next person for this behavior but why not save the conversations for lunch or happy hour when you can have a deeper, more meaningful discussion.
TIME SAVED: 40 minutes
The Unexpected Offenders:
Anxiety
Are you a worrier? We all are to a certain degree. But did you know the average person spends one hour and 50 minutes a day worrying? That's a lot of time thinking about things that most likely won't happen.
Time Reclaim: If you immerse yourself in a task you love you naturally enter a state of Flow. Flow helps you lose all sense of self and gets you in a hyper focused state where productivity is king.
How do you enter this space?
Before the day begins make a list of all the things you'd like to accomplish for the day and pick 2. By taking a giant list and "chunking it down," as an old statistics teacher of mine used to say, you allow yourself to hyper focus, accomplish more and keep the anxiety beast at bay.
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour 50 Minutes
No Lunch Break
Americans in particular are notorious for skipping lunch and "powering through" the workday. In fact, skipping lunch was a badge of honor at my last job. If you went to lunch you were considered weak and lazy.
Time Reclaim: First off skipping lunch is bad for your health. Your brain burns calories too after all. Eating something, especially healthy, midday will help you stay focused and make clearer more well thought-out decisions.
But don't forget about the coworker bonding and mental break you need as well. Lunch offers you a chance to unplug for a period of time and connect on a social level with others.
By powering down from work for just one hour you will reenergize yourself more than the extra coffee you grab in the afternoons to keep going.
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour
Fire Drills
I don't mean actual fire drills. I'm talking the panicked employees that want you to drop everything to solve their perceived crisis. Don't get me wrong, fire drills do arise but if you see them every week you either need to hire more people or clarify and educate.
Time Reclaim: The next time someone bursts into your office with the crisis du jour ask 2 questions.
How long have you known about this issue? (If it's longer than that day they need to have given you fair warning and brought this to you when it was first communicated.)
What solutions have you come up with? (I required at least 3 solutions or well thought-out ideas from my team before I would intervene in any problem. This saved me a ton of time, created a team of independent thinkers and I was only involved in truly challenging scenarios.)
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour
Sleep Deprivation
If you're unproductive studies have found one cause could be that you're sleep deprived. You are also more anxious and at greater risk for depression.
Time Reclaim: GO TO BED!! When I started regularly getting 8 hours of sleep a night my whole life changed. I thought much clearer and accomplished more than I did running on 5 hours of sleep.
If you think sleeping will put you behind on a task think again. It will make the task much easier to accomplish after a good night's rest.
Bonuses: Don't bring your electronics to bed! Leave them in another room or turn on do not disturb and only use the alarm on your phone.
With this new found rest your anxiety will naturally diminish as well.
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour
Switching Between Tasks Mindlessly
Multitasking sounds amazing but it actually makes you less productive. By trying to focus on more than one task at a time you're causing your brain to switch gears too often. This creates work products that are poor in quality and rife with errors.
But aside from multitasking what about purpose. Do you know what you want your purpose to be for each task you're accomplishing?
Time Reclaim: First focus only on one task at a time. This alone will kick your productivity into high gear.
Also, when you move from task to task give yourself a small break. This break should be between 9 and 15 minutes. In this time recenter yourself and think about the purpose of the next task at hand. What do you want to create and why? This simple mind reboot will take your productivity to new heights by helping you see a clearer path to the finish line.
I would love to take credit for this last one but I saw Brendon Bruchard speak last summer and he suggested it. It has personally changed my business and my life.
It seems like 15 minute breaks all day would kill your schedule but I promise it adds productivity to your day.
TIME SAVED: 1 Hour
If you're adding all of this up you'll see that I saved you almost 8 hours a day. You may be saying this isn't possible, but think about that 12 hour day you're working.
How much of it is filled with everything above?
Is there a chance you're robbing yourself valuable time each day?
This week try at least one of these suggestions above and see if you find a gain in your day. Pick just one task and you'll gain 5 hours in your week!