The Productivity Pro® Blog by Laura Stack - Time Management, Getting Things Done, How to Be More Productive

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) talks about how self-discipline affects our productivity. (C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) gives tips on working with your to-do list. (C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

“I’d try to keep a balance, as I try to do with my 24 hours now. So with one more hour, I’d work half an hour more, and spend the other 30 minutes working out, or reading, or having a drink with friends.” — Rosa Garriga Mora, poll respondent, Spain.

“Work out, read some books, take some dancing classes with my daughter… rest sometimes…one hour more per day would positively impact my life!” — Yurila Ramos, poll respondent, Venezuela

“Going on experience, I would spend it trying to solve annoying software bugs that are only happening because the computers are all out to get me.” — Tarot Atkinson, poll respondent, U.K.

What would you do with an extra hour a day?

That’s a question I posed in a LinkedIn poll this past July, and as with my earlier poll (in which I asked voters about the time of day they felt most productive), I found the responses to be rather fascinating. This poll attracted 137 votes by the time it closed, as well as 24 unique comments. The comments were a bit more numerous than before, probably because I asked the respondents who replied “Other” to leave their responses in the Comments section. Interestingly, only 13 of the 21 people who voted “Other” did leave a comment; eight of the remaining 11 commenters voted for other options, and three apparently didn’t vote at all, but wanted their voices to be heard. They bring the total number of poll respondents to 140.

Before we move on to the breakdown by response, let’s take a quick look at the demographics. A total of 118 voters (plus the three non-voters) provided their genders, while the other 19 voters (about 14% of the total this time) did not. This poll leaned a bit more heavily toward males than the last, with 71 men responding as opposed to 47 women. One of the non-voters was female, the other two male, so the gender breakdown is roughly 60% men to 40% women among those who provided the relevant data. Slightly over half the voters were business owners, managers, and high-level executives.

The age range was skewed a bit higher this time, with all the categories attracting approximately equal numbers: 22 respondents were aged 18-29, 21 fell into the 30-36 age range, 23 were aged 37-44, and 27 reported that they were over 45. The other 50 (including the non-voters) preferred not to say. Geographic information was available only for the commenters, but they were literally all over the globe. Ten were from the U.S.; four from the U.K.; two from India; and one each hailed from the Caribbean Nations, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Russian Federation, Spain, Switzerland, and Venezuela.

Of the five possible choices in the poll, the one that attracted the most votes was “Leisure, time with family and friends,” a choice I approve of most heartily. It took 40% of the vote (N = 55), almost twice as much as the second most common answer, “Work out, go to the gym” (22%, N=30), which I think is also a very good choice. “Sleep” and “Other” each pulled down 15% of the vote (N = 21 each), with only 10 people (7% of the total) opting for more work.

Men outnumbered women in all categories except working out, where women had a slight edge in absolute numbers (11 men vs. 14 women). However, a closer look at the percentages reveals that women were actually twice as likely as men to opt for working out: 15% for men vs. 30% for women. In fact, the only categories in which men outscored women percentage-wise were leisure time and working. Men were half again more likely to choose to rest (45% vs. 30%) and somewhat more likely to look for more work (10% vs. 6%).

The age breakdowns within individual categories were interesting. They were largely the same in the work, sleep, and other categories, though people in the low and high ranges (18-29, and 45+) were slightly more likely to choose sleep than those in other age ranges. Those groups (ages 30-36 and 37-44) were more likely to vote for working out, though. Older people were more likely to vote for leisure (N = 13 for the 45+ crowd). However, keep in mind that the total number of people in each category was quite small, and therefore the age range breakdowns might not be statistically significant.

As for seniority, non-managers voted to work out and sleep somewhat more than managers, owners, and C-suite execs, but again, the numbers in those categories were low enough that demographics could be swayed by just a few votes. Otherwise, the breakdown between managers and non-managers was roughly equal in the remaining categories, though there was some minor variation.

The “Other” category yielded some intriguing data. Of the 21 people who chose this answer in the poll, 18 provided their genders (10 men, eight women); so did the two non-voters who made their choices clear on this point (both male). A total of 15 of these individuals expanded on their answers in the Comments. Some said they preferred to maintain a balance of all the things they were already doing, spreading the extra hour over various categories, while others wanted to read more, write more, increase their volunteer efforts, take dancing and arts classes, learn a foreign language, go for walks, meditate, or otherwise unwind. Two preferred to code and debug software.

I’d like to thank all the participants in this poll for a truly revealing experience. While there were a few surprises, I was happy to see that most people would elect to take care of themselves more if they had just a little more time in the day. If you weren’t able to take part in this poll yourself, I’d still like to hear what you have to say. How would you spend an extra hour a day? Email me and let me know!

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), shares the Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best at the GROW 2011 conference in Dayton, OH.

Please join me on August 31 for a special audio conference through the Workplace Training Center. The topic is HR’s Strategic Role in Improving Workforce Productivity: Working with Your Managers to Create High-Performing Employees
Employees are expected to be competent. But the really successful employees are SUPER competent—the ones that companies fight to get, fight to keep, nurture and develop, and see as future leaders in their business growth. How do you know who the “A” players are?

HR professionals are in a unique position to work with managers to identify productive employees and help them become even greater performers. Using a model that assesses engagement and performance of each employee, HR professionals can work with managers on improving individual employee productivity.

Sign up today to hear some of the best advice, tips and techniques from The Productivity Pro Laura Stack, best known for the business classic Leave the Office Earlier,as well as other titles, such as SuperCompetent: The Six Keys to Perform at Your Productive Best and What to Do When There’s Too Much to Do (coming out in April 2012).

Learning Objectives:
•Do you know how to increase headcount without increasing salary expense?
•Manage the 2 critical dimensions of productivity impact
•Find out what factors impact an employee’s experience and ability to perform
•Uncover the 5 productivity personalities your employees will exhibit
•Help employees perform at higher levels and foster an environment of excellence
•Discover 6 keys to gaining peak performance from your employees

Sign up today at: http://www.workplacetrainingcenter.com/Prod-2656.aspx.

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), talks about multi-tasking and why it doesn’t work. (C) 2011 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved. http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

“There is nothing that the busy man is less busy with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.” — Seneca, Roman philosopher

“I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.” — Bertrand Russell, British philosopher

“The commonsense rules of the ‘real world’ are a fragile collection of socially reinforced illusions.” — Timothy Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek.

In 2007, Timothy Ferriss created a sensation in the business world with his provocatively titled book, The 4-Hour Workweek. In it, he outlined his philosophy that once you’ve worked hard to build your business, it’s possible to maintain that business at a profitable level by working for just a few hours per week.

Ferriss believes that the rules that bind us to the 9-to-5 grind are a pointless legacy of a time that’s long past, because in the modern knowledge economy, what matters isn’t how many hours you work—it’s how well you perform. Furthermore, he asserts, it doesn’t matter how much money you make if you don’t have the time to enjoy it.

How Does It Work?

Using his personal example, Ferriss outlines a method of ruthless time management using (among other things) the 80/20 principle, extreme outsourcing, and what he calls “cultivating selective ignorance”—that is, not trying to constantly keep up with every little thing at all times. Instead, he suggests, you should just catch up whenever it’s necessary to do so. This allows you to narrow your focus to the critical few items that really matter, so you can cut your workweek to a length that seems ridiculously short to many of us.

All this seems to work for Tim Ferriss— but can it work for you? Is a 4-Hour Workweek really possible? The answer is…well, kinda.

Working the Plan

I’m with Ferriss on the basics. My entire business is based on teaching people how to develop their time management skills so they can boost productivity, and I agree wholeheartedly that it’s an excellent idea to delegate/outsource everything except the few tasks that are the most profitable and valuable to you. As for selective ignorance, that’s basically the process of eliminating distractions and interruptions—which I’m all for as well.

Certainly, all these things can help you decrease your work load, especially when you apply them as rigorously as Ferriss apparently does. But does he really have a 4-Hour Workweek? I doubt that. First of all, the title of his book is clearly a catchy exaggeration, intended to drive sales. And Ferriss appears, in fact, to work much more than four hours a week, not just in promoting his book (and a recent sequel) but in maintaining his business interests and an informative blog.

Love It or Leave It

But here’s the thing: Ferriss’s construct works for him, and for many of his disciples, because he’s redefined the concept of work. In the context of the 4-Hour Workweek, work is anything you don’t like doing. That means that anything productive and profitable that you enjoy doesn’t count as work—no matter how long or hard you work at it. Some observers consider this specious reasoning; to them, work is work, even when it’s fun—because no matter what, it takes time, effort, and focus.

I can see their point, but I can see Ferriss’s as well. In fact, one lesson that I think you should take away from The 4-Hour Workweek is that if you truly want to maximize your productivity, you have to enjoy what you do. So yes, go ahead and use his methods (and others) to pare your work life down to its essentials, the critical few things that all of us time management gurus tell you to focus on. Then look at them critically; and if you don’t love them already, learn to love them—or change careers.

As you’ve probably learned by now, there’s nothing as soul-crushing as grinding your way through a job you just don’t like.

The Bottom Line

The concept of the 4-Hour Workweek is a valuable one, but like so many other business concepts, it only works under specific conditions. Remember, Ferriss had already built his existing business to steady profitability before he was able to arrange life so that he could abandon his 80-hour workweeks for 4-hour ones. So this is a maintenance concept only; if you’re still building your business, don’t expect it to work for you.

Moreover, this method can’t possibly work for every business, no matter how well-established. The concept of “fun work isn’t really work” aside, a business that requires your constant presence—especially service businesses where you are the product—can only be pared down so far. If, for instance, you’re a musician and you have to be present at your gigs every night, there’s only so much that you can delegate. The turning point of a business like this, of course, comes when you’re so much in demand that you can charge what you like for your services. Then you can scale back to the number of hours that suit you.

Ultimately, the concept of the 4-Hour Workweek is somewhat misleading, but the basic concepts underlying the Ferriss method are sound. You may never cut your workweek back to just four hours by following it, but you can certainly trim a lot of unnecessary fat from your schedule.

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) talks about doing too much. You can’t be productive if you’re overloaded. (C) 2011 Laura Stack, All Rights Reserved http://www.TheProductivityPro.com

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R), discusses matching your tasks to your energy level throughout the day. Know your own rhythms and plan your work around them. (c) 2010 Laura Stack – All Rights Reserved
www.TheProductivityPro.com

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro(R) discusses how “I’ll do that later” can affect your productivity. (c) 2010 Laura Stack. All Rights Reserved