Making the time you spend count Draft 1

When I was a manager of a large team I noticed that it was much easier to get people in on a Saturday morning than it was to actually get them to do anything much when they got there.  Thinking about that, it occurred to me that it would probably not be necessary to trouble them on a Saturday if they had simply worked a bit smarter during the preceding week.

It is much easier to commit time to a project than it is to commit time to actually working in a systematic way.  Basically most effort is required for a reward at some distant point in time.   Hard work pays off in the end. But fiddling around on Facebook and having a chat with a colleague pays off now.   And there is no time that the mismatch between long term and short term benefits is starker than on a Saturday morning.  You have just spent five days away from entertainment and pleasure. And now you have to break your normal habits and work instead while you are at your most tired and most deprived of fun.   It is no wonder it doesn't work.

The motto is obvious to state but hard to follow through on.   The value of the time you have diminishes as the week goes on.  You simply have to schedule the important stuff early in the week and wind down steadily to some real relaxation and recuperation at the end of it.