Is it possible to work 40 hours a week less and live even better? He proved it
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In her thirties, the American Tanya Dalton he was building his first company, working 12 to 14 hour days and raising two small children. As she struggled to manage her busy life in all the typical ways—endless to-do lists and a busy schedule—she quickly realized something was wrong.
“I was getting exhausted, exhausting myself and then wondering why I was so tired but still dissatisfied,” Dalton told CNBC Make It. “I’d go to bed at night and wonder why I didn’t do more.”
It was clear something had to change after she quickly became annoyed with her husband for spending another five minutes in the garage after work, listening to a radio show.
Instead of resenting her husband for taking a few minutes to himself, she found herself angry that she couldn’t afford the same amount of alone time in the chaos of her daily life: “I wouldn’t give myself five minutes to listen to the radio.”
Since then, Dalton says he’s been working on “decommissioning and tearing down old systems” from his workflow. Now, six years later, Dalton works until 3pm Monday to Thursday.
He now gives productivity advice
Founder and former CEO of InkWell Press, which sells planners, Dalton now advises companies on how to optimize productivity. At the same time, he takes every Friday off, for a total workload of 30 hours per week.
Rather than be held back by this shorter schedule, she says it’s helped her publish two books, including 2020’s “The Joy of Missing Out,” and become a sought-after productivity consultant and speaker.
Along the way, Dalton learned which productivity tricks are worth implementing and which are just fads and distractions from what really improves the quality of work.
Here are his top three productivity-boosting strategies, and the ones he believes you can ditch:
1. Exchange your Pomodoro timer for real breaks
The Pomodoro Technique is a viral time management trick, with big names like Tom Hanks claiming it has increased their productivity at work. The strategy is to set a 25-minute timer for focused work, after which you’ll be rewarded with a five-minute break. You repeat this four times before reaching the ultimate reward: a 20-minute break.
Nowadays, anyone can find a variety of productivity apps and websites purpose-built around the Pomodoro technique. But Dalton believes it’s fundamentally flawed because most people can’t just switch their attention on and off.
“One of the big problems is that whenever you get distracted, it takes about 23 minutes to get back into that state of flow,” Dalton says. “So whenever you get to that state where ideas are flowing, the alarm goes off and you stop.”
Instead, Dalton recommends designating longer periods of time for work and, consequently, longer periods of time for rest. For example, he recommends working out 60 to 90 minutes, no more than two hours at a time, before taking a break. He says this not only allows the mind enough time to enter its “flow state” where it can produce quality work, but also provides adequate recovery.
Truth be told, Dalton notes that there is no “magic formula” or one-size-fits-all approach to maximizing productivity. He says each person should pay attention to their own individual signs of when their concentration is slipping.
“Rest is really a requirement for doing great work,” says Dalton.
2. Measure your productivity in tasks, not hours
Among society’s major misconceptions about productivity, Dalton says loyalty to the 40-hour workweek leads the way.
“There’s nothing magical about the number 40,” she says. “Stop focusing on the time our team spends at their place and instead focus on the quality of their work and really define what success looks like.”
Correcting his approach to work, Dalton quickly realized that he didn’t need a full 40-hour week to complete his most important tasks. She says the to-do lists and back-to-back scheduling may have made her feel productive—every time she checked something on her to-do list, she recalls the “little dopamine surge”—but they were harming the actual production of her.
This is because, according to Dalton, “our brain will choose the easiest tasks to complete.”
The result: The toughest and often most important tasks get put off for days at a time.
Dalton recommends “throwing out your to-do list” and replacing it with what she calls a “priority list,” which has only five to seven tasks, sorted by importance.
Ultimately, you may end up completing fewer tasks with a priority list, but you’ll complete the items that really matter and maybe even in fewer hours by skipping easier, less important tasks.
“It goes back to the idea of ​​shifting attention away from time to focus on tasks,” says Dalton.
3. Get regular checkups
In the chaotic pace of his 70-hour workweek, Dalton never really took the time to realize he was well on his way to burnout, an increasingly common phenomenon in the workplace. That’s why intentional checking in with yourself has become an essential part of your productivity routine.
Dalton makes an appointment with herself every quarter as a time for personal reflection. She evaluates where she is in her life and whether she likes him. She thinks about the pace of her schedule, the balance between her work and family life, and what she might want to change for the next quarter.
Ultimately, these checkups helped highlight how unbalanced her life was, prone to work and away from family. Feelings like she wasn’t giving enough attention to her kids motivated her to set clear time limits and build her 30-hour workweek, she says.
“It’s powerful because it allows you to have more control over your life. It makes me feel like I’m more in charge of the bus instead of just being a passenger,” says Dalton.
Source: CNBC Do it
Source: Terra
Ben Stock is a lifestyle journalist and author at Gossipify. He writes about topics such as health, wellness, travel, food and home decor. He provides practical advice and inspiration to improve well-being, keeps readers up to date with latest lifestyle news and trends, known for his engaging writing style, in-depth analysis and unique perspectives.
