Before my wife leaves for her office, I usually ask her, “How is your day looking?” And her typical response is, “Really bad. Whole day meetings!”
Even though she heads her team and has full autonomy, she has little control over her time. And she is not an exception – most people are caught up in this grind and feel helpless.
To a large extent, productivity is no more an individual problem. Our inefficiency is a result of how we work. If we don’t change that, we will keep feeling every day that we did not accomplish enough.
Here are a few things that plague us:
1. Anyone can interrupt anyone, anytime, for anything, especially down the organizational hierarchy. There is no sanctity to anyone’s time and focus.
2. Anyone can call for meeting and ask any number of people to attend. Very few people decline meetings.
3. Without clear expectations about how quickly one should respond to emails and messages, everyone feels compelled to respond ASAP. If you are not on Slack, you might look like a slacker 🙂
4. There are no clear norms for prioritizing your time. What things can you say no to? Will it affect your standing if you do so?
These are not easy questions to answer.
Today’s workplace is so busy and distracting because we need to collaborate. But that comes at a cost.
Is there a clean, easy solution without trade-offs? No. If we want greater productivity, we will have to give up on instant access to other people’s time. Nothing comes for free.
I don’t have all the answers but I keep thinking about it. I would love to hear your thoughts.
– Rajan