Time Management: Fewer Hours Can Mean More Efficiency in the Office

Time Management: Fewer Hours Can Mean More Efficiency in the Office
By Julie Fleming Brown

We all go through periods when we just arent that efficient at work. Maybe theres something personal going on thats distracting you, maybe its been a beautiful summer week and you want to be out in the sun, maybe you have a cold and just dont feel good but also dont feel bad enough to stay home.

How to recapture your usual efficiency and focus? Spend less time in the office. Not dramatically less, but an hour or two. Note that this isnt a long-term strategy to increase efficiency, but rather one designed to help you get over the hump of whatever has got you off your regular game.

Why does this work? This tactic will:

Remove the PLM mindset. PLM is short for Poor Little Me. Over the years, Ive known lots of people who essentially fritter away Friday lunchtime or afternoon because they know they need to work over the weekend and theyre having a serious pity party. Dont believe me? Repeat the following using your best Eeyore voice: I may as well take a 2-hour lunch, since I have to be here all day Saturday anyway. Sound familiar? I thought so. Instead of taking a long lunch or surfing away a couple of hours, decide to leave at a set time thats a little earlier than you might otherwise, and stick to it. No pity party needed, because youre leaving early today. Thatll make you more effective throughout the day. Why? That leads to the second benefit.

Plug into getting-ready-for-vacation mentality. Have you ever noticed how much you can accomplish on Friday when you know youll be away from the office for the next week? You have something to look forward to, and you have a set time when youll catch your plane, meet family or friends, or whatever. Deciding to leave the office an hour or two earlier than usual can help you shift into this mindset. Suppose you normally leave at 7, but instead you decide to leave at 5. How will you shift your day so you can leave early? Will you bring lunch to your desk? Eliminate those little breaks that add up to wasted time? Ask your secretary to hold non-critical calls? And what will you do with your found time? Maybe go to a movie, slide into the restaurant thats too crowded by the time you can usually get there, or just go home, put on sweats, order in Chinese, and relax. Thats worth a manufactured in-office crunch on occasion.

Keep you from sitting in the office when youre being inefficient so you can recover. If youre too tired or you have a hideous headache or whatever, perhaps trying to focus isnt what you need or what will help you get your energy back. Of course, if youre on a deadline, you cant afford this luxury. But, for those ordinary times, cutting one day short may allow you to return to the office and do what you need to do the next day.

I assume its obvious why I advocate this technique only for rare occasions, but let me belabor the point. You dont want to be the person who never goes to lunch and never has time to chat. You dont want to be the person whos always leaving early. And you probably dont want to have to cram everything possible into every day if you do want to do that, you probably dont have an efficiency problem anyway.

But on occasion, cutting your time in the office can lead to a much-needed burst of efficiency. Use it wisely.

Julie Fleming Brown provides professional and personal coaching by telephone for lawyers and others. Julie works with professionals on work/life balance issues, job transitions, and career transitions, and blogs extensively on work/life balance issues on her Life at the Bar Blog, at http://www.LifeAtTheBar.wordpress.com/ To contact Julie for a complimentary coaching exploration session, visit http://www.LifeAtTheBar.com/ and http://www.MerryHeartCoaching.com/

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