Wasting Time in the Office
A few of us were recently having a conversation with some colleagues about how effectively our respective staffs spend the time we’re present in the office. There’s a new related study out that shows U.S. workers “waste” up to 2 hours a day, with the important distinction that older workers (55+) only wasted an average of 30 minutes per day, while the younger whipper-snappers are the ones who apparently can’t stay focused.
It’s certainly been an interesting process over the years at Summersault to examine how we spend time and what’s effective, what’s not, and what changes and compromises we can make. There’s a lot of conventional thinking that the ideal (but attainable) scenario is everyone comes from 9 to 5 (or some equivalent), is “on task” and efficient for 3 hours, stops for one hour or less of lunch, and then is “on task” again for another 4 hours. The reality obviously varies according to the office environment, industry, tools, third-parties involved, individual personalities, and other factors. We constantly seek a balance between having high standards for an efficient and hard-working (not to mention profitable) office atmosphere, and one that allows for creative tangential activities, prioritizing the personal health of our team members, and going with the flow of our workload for a given period.
The statistic of 30 minutes to 2 hours of wasted time is not surprising, though some of the reasons given - just “spacing out” and intentional squandering of time because one feels underpaid, for example - are more disconcerting than others. I’m grateful for our small office environment, where we can help keep each other on task, and it’s much harder for any one person to “waste time” without being noticed (not that it’s a problem). There are still plenty of opportunities for “deviations” that could be perceived as wasteful, especially when most all of us have tasks that require us to just browse the web, an activity well suited for sucking time out of one’s day. But in general, I suspect and hope that most small businesses, especially ones where the people working there are excited to be there, creatively engaged, and working closely together, tend to be exceptions to the phenomenon described.
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