#11 - The Case for Working Less
Time poor, inertia, and the case for working less
Time is funny thing.
We’re awake for 16 hours every single day. 16 hours!
And yet it feels as though we don’t have a second to spare.
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Time Poor
In 2016 I moved to London from a little village in the Cotswolds.
I’d got a job at a tech startup: Nobly POS (you can still find me on their homepage!)
Eager to impress I threw myself into the work.
During the next three years I did everything from cold calling in a dingy office in Whitechapel to setting up offices in the US and Australia.
For that time I didn’t have a moment to myself. Squeezing in a doctor’s appointment became an impossible ordeal.
And yet, as far as I can remember, I still had 16 hours each day.
Looking back, my actual work contribution was minimal.
So where did all that time go?
Inertia
Running Unplugged has been a wonderful opportunity to get to the bottom of this mystery.
Without adult supervision I’m now completely in control of my time.
What I’ve learnt is that time gets frittered away on “busy” work- work that feels important but adds no value.
Empty calendars get filled. Pointless zoom calls get scheduled. Free afternoons get consumed by emails.
It’s true, there’s a lot to do running a business; if Ben or I don’t do it it won’t get done. But the actual work doesn’t take long.
Those “high priority items” burning a hole in my to do list can usually be sorted with half an hour and a clear mind.
The problem is inertia.
Inertia (noun) - a tendency to do nothing or to remain unchanged.
Being busy creates inertia.
It’s a full calendar and a cluttered mind that take up time.
My three years of flat out work at Nobly? Inert.
I spent so much time on “busy work” that the genuinely important problems lay dormant as elephants in the room.
Me, a couple of elephants, and a calendar full of meetings; no wonder I couldn’t find time for that doctors appointment.
The Case For Working Less
As my own boss, I’ve had the opportunity to do something about it.
I’ve found proactively scheduling downtime is the antidote.
I’ll now do the big thing for the day, touch base with Ben, and then drag myself off on a walk or to get stuck into a book.
If I’m feeling on the ball I’ll dip back into work for another hour in the afternoon, and usually that’s enough.
Sure, it doesn’t always work out like this- some days there are fires to put out and cabins to clean- but I’ve found that the days now seem longer. I actually feel like I have 16 hours.
This is wonderfully captured in Parkinson’s Law:
“Time expands to fill the time available for its completion”
― C. Northcote Parkinson
By budgeting less time to work I’ve found I spend more time on the important stuff. There simply isn’t the time to waste on the fluff.
The point is not to work less to achieve less, it’s to work less to achieve more. By working less we can relax, focus, and let our creativity blossom.
I find a huge part of avoiding this inertia is limiting my time “online”; but that’s a conversation for another day.
What I’m Reading
A Bit of a Stretch by Chris Atkins
The diaries from the author’s stint in HMP Wandsworth. Fascinating.
A useful reminder that in prison, like life, it’s the disadvantaged who get hit the hardest.
Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
Tony tragically died recently aged just 46 so I thought it finally time to read his book; the story of Zappos. What a story.
Lots of great lessons: It all comes down to happiness. It’s complicated building a startup culture but Tony teaches that it’s simply about spreading happiness. Lovely.
I’ll be updating the books I’ve read this year here. Any recommendations? Let me know!
A final thought
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen all at once.”
― Ray Cummings
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Have a wonderful week.
Best wishes,
Hector