A few tips from expert Laura Stack to help you enjoy more time with your loved ones on Valentine’s Day.

Hectic work schedules have probably ruined more Valentine Day celebrations than we care to think about. It is easy to schedule business dinners for February 14th without a second thought…until the day before…when it finally hits us. More so than expensive jewelry or chocolates, many people are satisfied with having the undivided attention of a loved one for the evening.

Laura Stack, Productivity Expert and author of Leave the Office Earlier, has these tips to help you create an unforgettable Valentine’s Day:

Plan before you leave work. Double-check your planner and organize activities for the next day before you leave the office on Valentine’s Day. Getting tomorrow’s tasks out of your head and on to paper will help you leave work at work, so that you can be fully present with your significant other on this important night.

Make any last-minute essential calls on the way home. Make it your goal to complete your work by the time you arrive to meet your Valentine. While you’re on your way home, finish any leftover “business” conversations. When you see your loved one in person, you will be ready to focus on the romance. If you make a call list before leaving the office, it will help ensure you don’t forget anyone.

Get a babysitter. If you have children, and your goal is to give extra attention to your loved one, this is not the evening to let the children tag along. Make it all about adult time.  Even if you are not the one who usually makes these arrangements, surprise your loved one by taking the initiative and booking a sitter yourself. This is a busy night for babysitters, so plan ahead by booking at least a week in advance.

Find something that relaxes both of you. Since Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday, by the time you are finally together, you will each have dealt with the pressures of work. So find a way to relax before your special ‘date’ to decompress. Draw a nice bath for two or get a couples’ massage. That can set the stage for a perfect Valentine’s night.

Be present. Focus on your partner. If you spend the evening in, avoid the tendency to multi-task at home. Some people don’t feel productive when they’re not doing four things at once, but all of your attention should be directed to your Valentine.

Turn off the phone. One thing that is sure to ruin the mood on Valentine’s night is a ringing cell phone, especially if the caller ID shows it is a colleague, leaving you curious and distracted. Make it easy on everyone and turn the phone off for the whole night. Your Valentine will love you for it.

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“The business of the United States is business.” — Calvin Coolidge and several other American presidents

“Last year continued to show the effects of the weak economy. The amount of time spent watching T.V. and other nonproductive activities remains extraordinarily high.” — Alan Krueger, American economist, in response to the 2010 American Time Use Study.

“On an average day, 20 percent of men did housework — such as cleaning or doing laundry — compared with 49 percent of women.” — Citation from the 2010 American Time Use Study.

On June 22, 2011, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the results of its annual American Time Use Survey (ATUS) for 2010. A yearly tradition since 2003, ATUS offers a fascinating glimpse into the ways that Americans spend an average day. This time around, the results derived from interviews with 13,200 individuals, representing a cross-section of the American public. Among other things, the data provide an interesting perspective on workplace productivity, so let’s take a quick look.

The most interesting statistic (from a productivity perspective, at least) is the average amount of time Americans spent at work: three hours and 58 minutes per workday, down six minutes from 2009 and 30 minutes from 2007. The press has seized upon this figure, with some observers charging that we’ve become a nation of slackers. However, these commentators have misinterpreted the data, confusing an average across the board for the average for the employed.

The raw figures actually reflect the fact that ATUS covers a representative sample of all types of individuals from age 15 and up, not just employed adults. Many of the people surveyed were unemployed or employed part-time, so of course they would drag the average number of work-hours down. The decrease in the average time worked appears to represent not increased laziness but increased unemployment, which suggests that the recession worsened during 2010—no matter what any other metrics may have suggested.

A closer look at the statistical breakdown shows that employed individuals actually spent an average of 7 hours, 50 minutes working on weekdays, with work-related activities bringing that up to a solid 8.23 hours. Add to that an average of 5.45 hours per weekend day (5.64 with work-related activities) and it’s clear that working Americans aren’t the slackers we’re sometimes made out to be. About 82 percent of the employed worked on an average weekday, with 35 percent working weekends. This reflects how individual workweeks are structured, and hasn’t really changed in the past year.

Employed men worked an average of 8.2 hours on weekdays, with women averaging 7.8 hours. Overall, women tended to work 41 fewer minutes per workday than men. This is apparently due to the fact that women are more likely to work part-time, since they continue to be the primary familial caregivers and housekeepers. Only 20% of the men surveyed reported doing housework on the average day, for example, while 49% of women did. Similarly, women were half again more likely to take care of another household member on any given day than men were (30% vs. 20%).

So: where’s the lost work-time going? That’s difficult to say, though some observers are quick to assign it to the sleep and leisure categories. However, while both are currently higher than pre-recession numbers, there’s virtually no difference between the 2009 and 2010 averages for sleep-time, and Americans actually spent less time on leisure in 2010 than they did in 2009. In fact, the only basic survey category to increase significantly from 2009 was the catch-all “Other activities, not elsewhere classified”, which rose about seven minutes from .24 to .35 hours.

The average time spent sleeping remains steady at 8 hours, 40 minutes per day (8.67 hours), with women spending slightly longer asleep (8 hours, 46 minutes) than men (8 hours, 34 minutes). The sleep average for weekdays is 8.38 hours, about 90 seconds longer than 2009; for weekends, it’s 9.34 hours.

Average time devoted to leisure activities has dropped from 5.25 to 5.18 hours per day, with men again leading the pack (5.57 hours vs. 4.82 hours for women). Watching TV took up the lion’s share of this category, at 2.73 hours (2 hours, 43 minutes). People were more likely to watch TV on the weekends than on weekdays, but they still racked up 2 hours, 31 minutes daily during the workweek. While that’s an increase of 5.4 minutes over 2007 levels, it’s a decrease of 5.6 minutes since 2009.

What all these rather dry statistics boil down to is this: Americans are slightly less productive as a whole than we were last year, continuing a trend observable since 2007. It’s clear that the decline is due to increased unemployment rather than slacking, since the average numbers do include both the employed and unemployed. A closer examination of the data shows that the average employed American is as productive as ever.

And despite the assertion by some that we’re using our lost work-time to sleep and play rather than better ourselves (which would be an understandable reaction to the pressures of the recession, if true), we’re actually sleeping about as long as we did last year, and playing a bit less. The actual fate of that lost six minutes per day remains unclear.

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(C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

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“Stress is your body’s way of saying you haven’t worked enough unpaid overtime.” — Scott Adams, American cartoonist (Dilbert)

“More men are killed by overwork than the importance of this world justifies.” — Rudyard Kipling, British author

“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” — Robert Frost, American poet.

As I write this, we’re mired in the Great Recession of the early 2000s. The job market is tighter than it’s been in decades, which means that most of us are willing to do what it takes to keep the jobs we have. This often means putting in overtime, increasingly of the unpaid variety. The reasons that individual workers are willing to do so vary, but two factors are repeatedly cited: the need to prove themselves to management, and the perception that they they’ll lose their jobs otherwise. Sometimes the latter isn’t even a perception.

Salaried, with Benefits

Unpaid overtime is especially prevalent among salaried professionals, who are expected to modify the workweek as necessary to get the job done. But the job itself just seems to keep getting bigger, with workers required to take on more responsibilities as rising costs, attrition, competition, and other factors strike at profitability. It’s not that productivity is dropping; quite the opposite. We’re more productive than ever.

The notion of fairness has long since gone out the window in favor of need and expediency, so I won’t address that topic here. The bottom line is this: to many of us, being a workaholic is no longer a choice. It’s a job requirement. But is all this unpaid overtime productive, or harmful?

Like so many things in life, the answer isn’t cut and dried. It all depends on the circumstances.

The Pros

The way some jobs are structured, overtime is a necessity; you simply can’t get all your work done without putting in more than the traditional 40 hours. Management or HR should outline this for you during the recruitment phase, but usually they won’t (because they want you to take the job). Workers often discover from the very beginning that they have to do more than they expected; and even when that’s not the case, the workload may increase gradually as business conditions change. It’s up to you to decide whether your job is worth all the unpaid overtime, but if it is, said overtime becomes automatically worthwhile if you want to keep working. That’s a sour reality, but there it is; and some employers do take advantage of it.

Putting in unpaid overtime can also be beneficial if you’re trying to prove yourself to management, because in the long term it can result in greater promotion prospects and higher pay. This isn’t a universal result, but studies indicate that those who work plenty of unpaid overtime typically do better than their co-workers who don’t. In addition, willingness to work unpaid overtime increases your chances of keeping your job when it’s time to tighten the corporate belt.

In this sense, then, working unpaid overtime can be an investment toward future profits and employment. But the effect is contingent on staying with the same company, and maintaining the practice consistently. Management’s memory may not be particularly long, so remember: all that overtime last year might not matter if you haven’t put in any lately.

The Cons

It’s a fact of life that when you say “yes” to one thing, you have to say “no” to others. One of the worst things about overtime is that it keeps you away from friends and loved ones. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but only up to a certain point; you have to spend time with those you care for, so you can maintain and develop your relationships. Your children especially need you, as a positive role model at least.

Furthermore, many busy people push taking care of themselves down to the bottom of their to-do lists, where it often falls off and becomes lost in the daily triage of time management. This is bad enough, but too much work also results in exhaustion, which in the short term means that you make more mistakes and end up having to redo work, which means you become less productive.

In the long term, excessive overtime can have detrimental effects on your health. Karoshi (death from overwork) has been a recognized concept in Japan for decades, though it’s difficult to recognize in most other countries, which don’t keep statistics for such things. Depression is common among the overworked, and the suicide rate is higher among the chronically depressed. Feeling that you’re forced to put in unpaid overtime, for whatever reason, can make you feel trapped and helpless. These mental stresses, when added to the physical ones, can result in a catastrophic breakdown, one way or another.

On Balance

We all know that it’s a good idea to maintain a reasonable work/life balance, but the blunt truth is that under some circumstances, it’s just not possible. Something has to give, and in an economy like this one, it’s usually the rest of your life.

To answer the question posed in this blog’s title, unpaid overtime can be worthwhile, assuming you treat it as an investment and stick with it. On the whole, those people willing to work unpaid overtime have better chances of getting promotions and raises, and are more likely to avoid layoffs. It’s also worthwhile in a broader sense, if it’s necessary to keep your job.

They say hard work is good for the soul, and it can certainly help you get ahead, whether you’re getting paid for it or not. But as with anything, moderation is the key here. Too much work can keep you away from what really matters to you. It can also cause both physical and mental stress, which can have devastating health effects. If you do work overtime, know when you’ve reached your limit, and be willing to cut back as necessary so you don’t work yourself to death…literally.

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How to Spend More Time with Your Family
(Even When You’re Fantastically Busy)

“It’s all about quality of life, and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family.” — Philip Green, British billionaire.

Why are you working so hard?

If you’re like most of us, family is one of the biggest reasons: you want to provide a good life for the people you love. Which makes it all very ironic, since working long hours keeps you away from your family…the very people you’re working so hard to provide for. It’s a vicious circle.

Remember that old song “Cat’s in the Cradle,” where the busy father missed out on his son growing up because he was too busy working…only to have the tables turned when he retired? It’s not just a song. Things like that happen every day in the real world.

The lesson here? Just this: the best thing you can spend on the people you love is time.

Letting work intrude on family time should be the exception, never the rule. You need to be unplugged sometimes—not just for your health, but because your family, especially your kids, need you to be there. So if you don’t want to look back on your home life with regrets, then it’s time to make a bigger hole labeled “FAMILY TIME” in your schedule, and to build all kinds of barriers around that time to keep it sacred.

Here are a few basic concepts to help you get your priorities straight:

• Organize your schedule, and stick to it.
• Focus fully on your family during family time. Turn off your personal electronics, including the TV, computer, and cell phone.
• Don’t fall for the “quality time” shtick. The quality of the time you spend with your family does matter—but so does the quantity. An hour of quality time isn’t going to make up for ten hours when you should have been there but weren’t. And incidentally, “quality time” is not synonymous with “spending money on your kids.” What your family really wants is your attention, not your cash.

Once you’ve got those concepts solidly in place, start working toward ways to give more of yourself to your family. Here are some ideas that pop quickly to mind:

• Rearrange your work schedule. If you want to see your kids off to school, schedule your workday to start a bit later than normal. If you’d rather be there when they get home so you can enjoy the whole evening together, start earlier.
• Do training over the Internet. Instead of being gone for days at a time for seminars and training sessions, attend webinars online. It’s still a relatively new option, but the technology is growing by leaps and bounds.
• Telecommute. See above. If you don’t have to squander time driving across town when you could be communing with family, why should you?
• Hire household help. If your free time is limited, you shouldn’t have to spend it waxing the floor. If you can afford to, hire someone else to do it.
• Have a sit-down meal together. This is a wonderful option that has become rare in this busy era. Turn off the TV and get some face-time with the family. If the family is just you and your spouse, I recommend the occasional candlelight dinner.
• Combine business travel with vacation. When you can, bring your spouse and kids along when you travel for work. Even if you can’t be with them the whole time, you’ll be together most of the time, and they can have some fun exploring when you’re working.
• Limit your kids’ extracurricular activity. I’ve got this theory that parents who try to stuff their kids’ schedules full are subconsciously preparing them for the business world. But if you do that, they won’t be around for family time. Instead of sending them off to Little League or ballet every single evening, keep them at home sometimes so you can enjoy each others’ company.

Now, I realize that not all these ideas are possible or even practical for everyone. But they offer a place to start, at least, if you’re really serious about spending more time with the family—and you should be.

I’d love to hear your ideas on the subject, so feel free to drop me a line!

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