Posts Tagged: work environment

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17
Jun 09

Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites

Maggie Jackson says:

“The average knowledge worker switches tasks every three minutes, and, once distracted, a worker takes nearly a half-hour to resume the original task, according to Gloria Mark, a leader in the new field of “interruption science.”

Interruptions and the requisite recovery time now consume 28 percent of a worker’s day, the business research firm Basex estimates. The risks are clear. As one top executive told me, “Knowledge work can’t be done in sound bites.” “

From Fighting a War Against Distraction via The Practice of Leadership

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15
Jun 09

Ignore Sunk Costs

Seth writes:

“When making a choice between two options, only consider what’s going to happen in the future, not which investments you’ve made in the past. The past investments are over, lost, gone forever. They are irrelevant to the future.”

I agree. Too many bad things happen when people insist on preserving the past only because they paid a lot for it. It might be painful, but sometimes you have to true up and say: That might have been a good decision when it was first made, but it is not a good decision today. Be honest with yourself, and embrace the change.

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22
Apr 09

Too many meetings?

Are you making stuff, or only meeting to talk about making stuff?

Mychael Nygard analyzes the probability that a critical meeting with 3 people will be deferred till next week in Can you make that meeting?

Turns out that if they’re each 75% utilized, then there’s only a 15% chance they can schedule a one hour meeting this week.

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29
Mar 09

Hours per Week

Matt answers: How many hours should I work per week?

37signallers can set their own schedules but I’d say, on average, we work a typical workday (8 hours) and we don’t work weekends. [...] A normal workweek should be plenty. Even less is ok. In fact, being short on time is a good thing. It forces you to focus on the essentials. There’s no time for things that don’t matter.

My favorite part is the ending: “Worry about the quality of your hours, not the quantity. That’s what really matters.”

Agreed.

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9
Dec 08

Almost working on the most important thing

Guy Beaver on “The Professional Syndrome”

With large batches of non-prioritized (but important) work “pushed” through the professional organization, individuals can easily be blocked due to waiting, delays, etc. But their professional behavior (and skills in multi-tasking) drives them to work on the next most important task. Integrate this over time for the large number of projects that are pushed through the organization and the unexpected result is the biggest cause of unnoticed waste – everyone “almost” working on the most important thing.

[via NetObjectives, Economies of Scale (Don't) ]

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