One of the most effective ways to increase productivity and ensure the important things get done is to reduce your working hours.
It’s easy to let work run rampant with a big open schedule. But when it’s crunch time, we’re forced to prioritise and only the important stuff makes the cut.
As Brian Tracy says, “There is never enough time to do everything, but there is always enough time to do the most important thing”.
This adjustment requires discipline and setting self-imposed time limits; however, the payoff is that you’re more likely to zero in on the activity that yields your greatest outcome. Not to mention you’ll enjoy more guilt-free time for yourself and get closer to striking the elusive life-work balance.
Tips to get you started:
Commit to fewer hours: Whether you shave an hour off of each day, or opt for a four-day work week, decide which hours you’ll work and make the commitment. By committing to reduced working hours, you’re also committing to more time for yourself.
Only work during working hours: This may sound like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at how much eats into our working time if we allow it. When we allow work and personal activity to dovetail throughout the day, it can seem like work takes longer than it really does. Keep work activity corralled to its designated time, and resolve to work concentratedly on one task at a time.
Use Parkinson’s Law: Parkinson’s Law states that “work expands to fill the time available for its completion”. Are you giving yourself two hours to complete something you can do in 45 minutes? Sometimes we don’t allocate time proportionately to the task. Know how quickly you can perform any given task by timing yourself. Then impose these time limits. This will keep your timeline lean and your working hours down.
Honour the stopping point: If you’re used to working around the clock, stopping short may feel uncomfortable – even if you’ve finished your work as planned. Resist the temptation to dive into a new project or keep working because you feel you should. Remember you’re building a habit that will help you better balance your life so your work doesn’t take over, and you need to instil trust with yourself so you don’t lapse into old habits.
Keep the backlog at bay: There will always be more activity than time available, regardless of how many hours we have, because we are bombarded constantly with new information, opportunities and tasks. To minimise the backlog, always be filtering everything you do by asking yourself:
- Does this even need to be done at all?
- Could I farm some or all of this out to someone?
- What can I forward to a later date so I can do something more important today?
- How can I produce this in the least time possible?
When you reduce your working hours and only perform activity that earns its keep within that time, you’ll experience noticeable changes. Your productivity will increase, you’ll be less likely to waste time on the small stuff and you’ll be more fresh and ready when it’s time to start again.
Most importantly you’ll learn to enjoy the reward of guilt-free time for yourself, your family, your pursuits.
Great article Cory & one where I wholeheartedly agree with everything you suggest here!
Some people find it so hard to stick to their work schedules, but once they really commit to a time-limit for a piece of work, it all starts to come together.
Having an effective, simple system in place helps no end of course too!
Hi Amanda, thank you for your kind comments – Yes, it takes some getting used to, but if they can keep to the schedule long enough to experience the benefit they’re more likely to make it a habit. And you make an important point – it’s easier to adopt a new habit when we’re supported with simple, effective systems in place!