I have set hours in my job. I work 8AM to 5PM, Monday to Friday. I have breaks and I take lunch. Normally around the same time everyday. The majority of people in office life do the same. However I don’t believe it’s the most productive way to get the most out of me.
My day is cut into tasks which I assign myself. I keep tabs on what tasks need to be done using a task manager called Things. You can read more about it’s benefits here. If I’m working on one of my tasks, the time assigned to it is never totally accurate. Some run 15 minutes over what I had hoped, some might take an hour less due to unforeseen circumstances. In fact I hate assigning a time frame to the tasks and very rarely do.
If I’m plugging away getting what I need to do done, I don’t want to glance at the clock and realize, “Hey, this is my lunch time…” drop what I’m working on and head out to get some food. Same goes for companies that have designated breaks. If an employee is happily plugging away on a task, you don’t want them disrupted. At all. This can be worse for IT works but it applies to all.
When that employee comes back to that in-completed task, their concentration is lost. They need to spending an unneeded amount of time to just get back to where they were.
The same goes for when I arrive and leave the office, it’s not always optimal. If I’m running a little late and arrive to work at 07:50AM I don’t want to be frantically getting my ducks in a row with coffee’s, booting up my machine etc. If I do, I’m disjointed when I go to start my work. I’m trying to slow my breathing down rather than getting stuck in.
If I’m working on a task and notice it’s 5PM, I would prefer for my brain to not go “Time to yet…” but rather, “Lets get this done”.
The ideal scenario would be to arrive in work when you wake up fresh from a good 8 hour sleep. Setting tasks to be done before lunch, with a few coffee breaks in between the tasks, then some more work on the same basis after lunch. When all the tasks are complete, go home. Rinse and repeat.
I know this wouldn’t work in all walks of office life, but I know I would be more efficient. The company would reap more from me and I would go home a lot happier knowing my full list of jobs that I wanted to get done today, are done.
Working task to task
I have set hours in my job. I work 8AM to 5PM, Monday to Friday. I have breaks and I take lunch. Normally around the same time everyday. The majority of people in office life do the same. However I don’t believe it’s the most productive way to get the most out of me.
My day is cut into tasks which I assign myself. I keep tabs on what tasks need to be done using a task manager called Things. You can read more about it’s benefits here. If I’m working on one of my tasks, the time assigned to it is never totally accurate. Some run 15 minutes over what I had hoped, some might take an hour less due to unforeseen circumstances. In fact I hate assigning a time frame to the tasks and very rarely do.
If I’m plugging away getting what I need to do done, I don’t want to glance at the clock and realize, “Hey, this is my lunch time…” drop what I’m working on and head out to get some food. Same goes for companies that have designated breaks. If an employee is happily plugging away on a task, you don’t want them disrupted. At all. This can be worse for IT works but it applies to all.
When that employee comes back to that in-completed task, their concentration is lost. They need to spending an unneeded amount of time to just get back to where they were.
The same goes for when I arrive and leave the office, it’s not always optimal. If I’m running a little late and arrive to work at 07:50AM I don’t want to be frantically getting my ducks in a row with coffee’s, booting up my machine etc. If I do, I’m disjointed when I go to start my work. I’m trying to slow my breathing down rather than getting stuck in.
If I’m working on a task and notice it’s 5PM, I would prefer for my brain to not go “Time to yet…” but rather, “Lets get this done”.
The ideal scenario would be to arrive in work when you wake up fresh from a good 8 hour sleep. Setting tasks to be done before lunch, with a few coffee breaks in between the tasks, then some more work on the same basis after lunch. When all the tasks are complete, go home. Rinse and repeat.
I know this wouldn’t work in all walks of office life, but I know I would be more efficient. The company would reap more from me and I would go home a lot happier knowing my full list of jobs that I wanted to get done today, are done.