Work All The Time You Work

In his book Time Power Dick Tracy suggests that you should work all the time you are at work. This has to be one of the hardest principles to comply with when you are an employee.  You are up against your fellow employees, who certainly have no intention of working all the time.  Or any of it in some cases.  They regard you as fair game as a distraction.


Management are not quite as determined to derail you, but are certainly pretty heedless of the consequences of their actions on your time management aspirations.  Meetings are always scheduled at the most productive time of the day.  "Reports" are commissioned as if they somehow wrote themselves.  No distinction is made between urgent deadlines, desirable goals and totally arbitrary deadlines set to make project plans look good.

Add these on top of your own lack of willpower and the fact that frankly you are going to get paid the same whether you put in a stakhanovite display of productivity or a few hours of barely disguised gossiping and messing around.  Basically Dick Tracy's admirable suggestion is not going to work.

But how about time you control yourself?  Is there a case for frequent breaks to keep you fresh and on top form?  Or should you aim to squeeze the productivity out of the time you are working.  I have to say I don't think the answer is obvious.  I like the idea of getting everything out of the way so I can relax totally.  But equally, it isn't just a question of putting the hours in.  Maybe I would get more done in the long run by a more measured approach.

I think the only answer is an experiment to find out.   I have fallen into the default mode of not pushing myself too hard over the last year.  I have certainly achieved a fair amount in that time.  But could I have done much more with a lot more discipline.  I will try that for the months of May, June and July and see how they work out.  To be clear, I aim to avoid working in the evenings from now on.  I want to do a minimum of six hours in a day - a target of eight  and a maximum of ten.  All this has to be done between the hours of 6.00am and 6.00pm.

Let's see how it turns out.

photo credit: Ruth and Dave via photopin cc