Grimsdyke Consulting

How to be Productive: Stop Working

// August 12th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

This excellent post on BNET by Margaret Hefferman asserts what some of us have been saying for a while – that there are limits to our working hours beyond which we start to become less productive. I noticed this in the 1980s when working for my first employer, a strategy consulting house with a bizarre over-the-top work ethic. We were contracted to work 50 hour weeks but the norm was to do much more with many people in the office late at night and through the weekend. I noticed at the time that every hour above the 50 was increasingly likely to produce a mistake of some sort that would take me ages to correct later…

Take Part in Info Overload Survey and Win Dilbert CubeGuard Blockers

// July 13th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

I have been working for a few months now with the magnificent Information Overload Research Group whose members and steering group are mostly in the US. They pull together a wealth of great information about info overload. One of the sponsoring organisations, Basex, has set up a survey about what happens during the knowledge worker’s day – the results will be published on Information Overload Day in September.

Read more about the survey on the Basex blog and take the survey here.

“The Cult of Busyness” and the lonely society

// July 6th, 2010 // No Comments » // Uncategorized

The Mental Health Foundation recently published its report “The Lonely Society”, available here. It is well worth a read as it is a really good analysis of the combined impacts of the way we work today and the way we socialise via electronic means. It appears that – both at home and at work – we are all to busy contacting one another to actually communicate.

One paragraph struck a chord with me particularly so I quote it in full:

“…socialising and investing time in social ties are generally seen as less important than “productive” activities like work. Writing about loneliness in 21st century America, Harvard professors of psychiatry Jacqueline Olds and Richard Schwartz refer to the ‘cult of busyness’ that has become a modern badge of honour. They suggest that we face so much pressure to be ‘productive’ that we neglect ‘unnecessary’ relationships that are as vital as food and water. Long working hours are frequently cited as having a negative impact on family life. For many people, working long hours is a necessity to support their families, rather than a choice. “

Why is it irritating to hear one half of a mobile conversation?

// June 2nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Uncategorized

Some research just published in Psychological Science suggests we find it harder to screen out someone’s conversation when we can only hear one side. The team at Cornell University got teams to do a number of conversation tasks while listening to both two-sided and one-sided conversations. They made more errors when listening to one-sided conversations. So, if you’ve ever felt irritated by the conversation on the tube home about someone’s plans to have Marks and Spencer lasagne and a bottle of wine in front of a DVD when they get home, it’s because your brain is trying to fill in the missing part of the conversation. Even if it’s as mundane as whether the DVD should be Mama Mia or Sex in the City…

What the research does not offer any explanation for is this natural curiosity that the brain has for “information” just beyond its reach. My feeling is that it’s the same impulse that makes us want to check each email as it comes in. It’s “gossip” which in our ancestral environment might have been a crucial nugget of information about something fundamental to our survival. Our brain has not yet caught up with the idea that it might just be about someone else’s frozen lasagne.

30% of Employees in the US Feel the Need to Stay Connected 24/7

// April 22nd, 2010 // 1 Comment » // Uncategorized

This survey by conferencing firm InterCall was covered in the New York Times yesterday. Among the other interesting findings were: that 25% of workers think their supervisors expect them to be online and connected after hours;  that 15% expect to attend at least one work-related call or web meeting during their next vacation; and 17% say that it is frowned upon if they don’t connect to work during their vacations.

I wonder what a similar survey would find in the UK. As for the requirement to be connected 24/7 being driven by bosses, my experience is that it is more multi-faceted than that. People I know that stay connected on holiday often say they do so as it is less stressful than wondering about the thousands of emails building up for their return. So the relationship between email and stress has become double-edged since people are often more stressed when on holiday and without access to email – hence, the rationalisation of tackling them before returning to work.

For me, the trend here is worrying – I doubt anybody achieves anything particularly impactful from their holiday. All they are doing is hindering their work-life balance and their resilience to stress with ultimate consequences for them, their familay and their employer.