How much of your day is spent doing something meaningful?
I recently had an emergency appendectomy. Such as with any emergency, it wasn’t planned. I also had no idea how painful it would be or how long it would take to heal. This began my trial and error test phase to determine how much work I could do and how long I could do it.
When you are healing from a surgery, you can’t do much more than lay around. After the first few days, I began to think I could return to normal. I jumped back into a full workday. After all, I was just sitting at a computer all day. How hard could that be? I soon discovered that my body had other plans and that just “sitting” was painful. I also didn’t think I needed to rest all day and that some work could be manageable. So I proposed a part-time work schedule for a couple of weeks to continue to test my stamina.
This two week part-time trial taught me a couple of invaluable lessons:
When you have less time, you focus on what matters.
Making more time for your wellness is good for you and your work.
When I was able to manage a full workload in half the time, I began to pay closer attention to how much of my day is spent doing meaningful work, instead of just busy work.
A variety of research studies have found that on average, corporate workers spend only about 2.5 to 3 hours per 8-hour workday doing truly productive, focused work. If that’s the case, then what takes up the remainder of the day? The rest of the time is spent on meetings, emails, and distractions like checking social media.
Meetings typically take up over 20% of the week
Workers check email about every 6 minutes on average
Interruptions take 23 minutes to refocus after each interruption
How can you structure your day for quality vs. quantity? Here are some tips.
Each day, identify the top three things you will accomplish (personal and professional).
Identify your peak hours when you have the most energy for doing important work then block off that time and label it as “important” and prioritize your top three things during this time.
Cut distractions by turning off notifications, creating a clean workspace, and using a ritual like listening to focus music, lighting a candle, or setting a timer.
Instead of checking email every 6 minutes, set specific times for email. Some people find success checking in the morning, lunchtime, and before the end of the day. Other people block time in between meetings to answer email.
Take time to recharge with regular breaks. Every 30 minutes take a stretch break. After 90 minutes, take a 15 minute break. And after every three hours, take a 30 minute walk.
Align with what matters to you. At the end of the day, you want to feel better than when you started, not worse. Keep trying tactics that give you energy and joy throughout the day.
