Are Your Poor Work Habits Costing You?
I used to work in an office where one of my colleagues was held up as a model of dedication and devotion to work. The main reason for this was that he worked much longer hours than others, generally not leaving the office till 9pm.
However despite the long hours, the odd thing was that he was always behind on deadlines. In fact, as time went on he was missing more and more deadlines and struggling to cope. How could he be working so hard and still be falling behind?
The reason was that he was writing reports that contained unnecessary detail and flowery language (e.g. “I will be detained by prior commitments that will render me unable to apportion appropriate time to this activity” instead of “I am busy”). This made his reports 2-3 times longer than they needed to be. This obviously meant he took longer to get things done than others.
What struck me most about this situation was that when he was confronted with this information, he was very resistant to making any changes. Simply by removing some of the unnecessary detail, he would have produced better reports, in less time, using less energy. And yet he couldn’t believe there was a solution to this that didn’t have a downside. He fought it all the way.
Technological development in our society is all about discovering more efficient ways to do things faster and better with less resources. So why can’t people apply those principles to their lives? It’s because they get stuck in doing things the way they always have. And the costs are huge. The colleague in the above example never got home before 10pm. What kind of family and social life do you think he had?
In what areas of your life is your adherence to set ways of doing things costing you?
Action Step
Look at some area of work and life that takes you a lot of time and energy and think about whether there is a way to do it better and more efficiently. Compare the way you do things to the way other people approach the same task. Can you apply some of their ideas to your approach?
Notice how attached you are to the way you do things now but also think about the possible gains to be had by finding new approaches.
Examples of areas to examine could include:
1. Your daily routine
2. Work tasks
3. Household chores
I have to say I am guilty of doing the same thing every day, and it doesn’t work and I keep doing it and hoping tomorrow will be different! I’m going to look at some of my work jobs and see how my co-workers do it better!
[Reply]
Comment by Ronald — June 18, 2009 @ 7:48 pm
I know people like this…
Actually, I’m like this.
[Reply]
Comment by Brent — June 22, 2009 @ 3:43 pm
theres a guy at my work who is there till all hours. we dont know what he does all day either.
i think he doesnt like his wife!
antoher useful tactic is to pause during the day and think about whether what you are doing is efficient or not
[Reply]
Comment by Frank the Fearless — June 30, 2009 @ 10:15 am