Leaving the office at 8 p.m., endless weeks, and the feeling of running out of time are not inevitable. You don’t have to turn everything upside down to get precious free time. 5 ways to sharpen your eyes and tighten your agenda.
Five hours, almost a day’s work. This is the amount of time French workers estimate they lose on average per week, according to Slack’s OpinionWay survey, conducted in the fall of 2022 on a sample of 1,000 people. Precious time that sucks in a whirlwind of useless or excessively long meetings, during which half of the participants wonder what they are doing there… and that many people would like to use differently. Respondents would prefer to relax (26% of respondents), reduce stress (20%), spend time with loved ones (21%), manage personal administrative tasks or play sports. To live, in short, outside the office.
So this “lost” time is fatal. Probably not, judging by the growing number of companies experimenting with the four-day week, the results are conclusive across Europe, and those that have already adopted this pace. If they manage to eliminate the weekly workday, it’s a safe bet that everyone can recover a few hours of wasted time on their scale. Even if it means loosening your habits and redefining your priorities.
Limit meetings and organize them better
“We’ve developed a different relationship with time,” emphasizes Camille Fauran, general manager of Welcome to the Jungle, both a job search platform and specialized work media, which adopted the four-day week at the beginning of 2020. – month trial period. “We intensified the meetings. we seek more to understand why such a person attends them, in order to avoid presentation and tension,” continues Camille Fauran. When we meet, we set an agenda, outline next steps, and stick to a schedule of about 45 minutes at most. By the way, it was an opportunity to expand the exchange of information in a written, asynchronous way.
If the same rule cannot be applied to all workplaces, each team can decide independently to limit the number of weekly meetings, decide on a decision-making point with only such a manager, etc. Anyone within their team can also play this key role, which consists of questioning the merits of the meeting and questioning the way it is organized to suggest alternatives. And with a little luck and persuasion, you manage to leave an hour early in the evening.
Intervals of blocking deep work
Another option. keep a schedule to move forward on important issues. Some have thus adopted deep work, a concentration technique defined by Cal Newport, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University in the US. The idea. Get out of the flood of information, requests, “Can I see you for five minutes?” – and notifications from your mobile phone for intense and long-term focus. “Once you solve a difficult problem, there’s no better way to move forward,” coach Diane Balonaud-Rolland, founder of Time and Balance, recently explained to us. If you don’t take yourself out of the hustle and bustle of everyday life to escape the relatively long beaches, you won’t succeed. But above all, when planning intervals deep work during the week, you quickly realize that the work experience becomes less unpleasant, less energy-consuming and less time-consuming.”
Some managers themselves encourage their teams to sanctify time slots deep work weekly. For others, it’s about driving the movement yourself. It is best to avoid going alone without warning anyone. then we risk annoying colleagues and bosses who may need us more urgently. On the other hand, you can fully anticipate and explain to your team that you will be unavailable on such a day at such a time slot in order to complete a particular file on time. Before sharing around the coffee or water fountain, all the benefits we get from these concentration ranges…and mimic?
In the video: Sybil Le Maire. “No, not working on Wednesdays costs less.”
Accept that surrender is the priority
The observation is simple but inevitable: to work less, you must do less. So choose, prioritize and sacrifice certain files or projects. “We’ve brought Comex and managers together a lot to formalize our priorities, our strategy and key areas of work over the next two years,” explains Camille Fauran of Welcome to the Jungle. This made us stop projects even if they had meaning and potential. We learn to make the right choice at the right time.”
Without this impulse from above? You can start by saying no to your boss. “No” to the new file if we don’t get rid of the other one, “no” to the new short term… It’s not about banging the fist on the table, but explaining that everything is not possible. at the same time; that, by definition, you can only have one emergency at a time; but the fact that we light one file also allows the other to fill in time. Of course, this implies a form of renunciation… which is also a means of exercising freedom.
Keep track of micro-tasks
Same with invisible but time-consuming micro-problems that sometimes stem from outdated habits or lack of weapons. “This is one of our important lessons,” continues Camille Fauran, compensating process incapacitated, many of our employees took on small tasks that took up their work time. That’s why we’ve created workplaces dedicated to performance analysis and time efficiency to improve the daily lives of our teams and allow them to dedicate themselves to meaningful work.” There, too, one can imagine the initiative of a discussion with his boss, to describe to him what is wasting our time, of which he is undoubtedly not aware. All coaches say. it is important to learn how to manage your manager. And saving time for yourself seems like the best reason to start.
Learn why we fight
The challenge, then, is to persevere over time and not sacrifice these times for self as soon as an emergency looms on the horizon. That’s why it’s important to decide what you want to do this time outside the office, whether it’s clearing your mind or “managing” tasks you don’t have time for. Playing sports, reading more, doing something with your hands, picking up the kids from school, spending time with your spouse… This is perhaps one of the most powerful attractions in today’s world of work, and its developments are proof of the success of freelance work. freedom to define free time. And slowly, its rhythm.
Source: Le Figaro
