How much work is there really? Time for a self-audit.

Many of us find ourselves busy being busy. Rather than being productive in the true sense or in deep thinking work, we often are rushing from task to task or working on the smaller items on our to do list. Being busy answering emails, making phone calls or attending meetings. Not getting deep into the work.

Another trap we often fall into is thinking that to demonstrate our importance or value to the team in the office we need to be working all the hours and rushing from meeting to meeting. This is simply untrue and unsustainable.

Whilst it is a reality (and joy) of many offices to finally see people face to face and connect with each other, the real work often doesn’t happen in back-to-back meetings. Meaning that the ‘real work’ can’t happen in these meetings, either first thing in the morning or late at night (after life has happened).

Performance Work

Performance work is the person (can you see yourself in this) who runs around the office with a pile or paper, arriving late to meetings with an harried air, staying late every day and moaning about their workload and making sure everyone they come across knows how busy they are. This may have morphed slightly over the past couple of years in the online world to being ‘available’ at all times through your phone, email or on Teams. Arriving late to Zoom meetings telling everyone how busy they are.

Either you are this person or I’m sure you can picture someone from your office.

It’s not a new phenomenon, there have always been these people and is a sign of poor time management, poor boundary setting and a misplaced idea of where the value is in the work. Understanding how much time you are investing through the day in meetings, follow up calls, meetings for meetings etc vs the deep thinking or productive work can be invaluable.

Time for a self audit

1. Get tracking

It’s easy enough to track your meeting hours through your calendar. There are many apps that can be used to track your screen and where you are spending your time. Or track your time on each task through Toggl or a similar tracking app.

2. Note how much time you spend doing admin

How long do you spend organising your emails? How much of the day are you ‘online’ through slack, Teams etc? How much time is spent prepping for meetings or the follow up from meetings?

3. How much time do you spend on your core job?

Define what your ‘core’ job is. If you only had 10 hours a week what would this look like? Maybe it’s sales targets, project or a presentation.

4. Start proactive conversations

Once you have a clear idea of where you are spending your time and where there is room for you to improve your focus, get talking, and make a plan. Talk to your manager about where you can be more effective in your role.

5. Simple tricks

It can be as simple as blocking out time in your calendar to allow you to focus. Plan for the week ahead, make sure you understand what is required of you, and make the time during work hours to complete it. Meetings can be worked around this key focus time.

Time-learned patterns

Many of us have fallen into these patterns over time. Having to pick up extra work when there have been redundancies or business has been tight. If it is felt that you ‘have it handled,’ most workplaces will let you go on and manage it. Setting boundaries around expectations and work times is important. Revisiting your role and expectations regularly can help.

It can be challenging to change the norm but avoiding burnout or resentment can mean the difference between keeping good people, or watching them walk out the door (with all of that knowledge and experience). It’s to your and the business’ benefit to look at how your time is spent.

Knowing where your value lies within the business and for your own work-life balance can help you feel valued and that your contribution matters. And you can balance your life with your work. Working sustainably for the future.

If you need help with finding your work-life balance and where your value lies, I’m here to help. Sign up for my newsletter - or book a consultation, and we can work together to find where your self-audit might take you.