Would You Believe Time Is a Productivity Trap?
Ask someone if they are going to the fitness center, and they may say, “I don’t have time.” Ask about running errands, paying bills, or doing the laundry, people may suggest there isn’t enough time. Could it be that time is a productivity trap?
What is time costing you? When life is all about the opportunity cost, what are you paying?
Time Spent
We make a lot of decisions every day. Many of those choices have to do with the time we spend. There are opportunities that are either gained or lost.
What choices will you make about time today?
How much time will you spend:
- In the drive through lane at the coffee shop?
- Studying the quality of the selfie image on the social media thread?
- Procrastinating about work to be done instead of jumping in?
- Proofing an email that took you two minutes to write but you’ve been studying it for ten?
- Picking up your phone, turning it on, assessing in-bound data, turning it off, putting it back down?
What if the cost of an hour changed? Instead of sixty minutes it became fifty? How would this affect your productivity?
Productivity Trap
Imagine you are on the job for eight hours, but you lose ten minutes each hour. Hours are now fifty minutes. The workload and opportunities remain constant.
You lose one hour and twenty minutes per day. That is more than six hours per week. On average then you lose over twenty-four working hours per month. That would be more than 288 hours per year, which is more than seven work weeks.
If you were absent from your work for more than seven weeks what would have changed? Would nothing change, or might you suggest that everything would change?
Taking time for granted is the biggest productivity trap of all.
Waste less.
-DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and culture expert. He is a five-time author and the founder of Appreciative Strategies, LLC. His business focuses on positive human performance improvement solutions through Appreciative Strategies®. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
