How toxic diaries kill productivity, increase burnout and lose your best talent…

When lockdown began, office interruptions and chance conversations vanished overnight. Only to be replaced with more pointless meetings to keep people ‘connected’. 

According to The Anatomy of Work Index 2021 a whopping 60% of time is wasted on ‘work about work’. 

On top of this, 87% of people are working two-hours later each day, almost twice as much as two years ago. 

No commute, no walks between meetings and no ‘water cooler’ conversations have removed natural mental breaks during the day. So your people are not only working longer but also more intensely than ever.

Your people’s diaries could be toxic. How would you know?

Because they're working more hours to fit everything in and it seems like the more they do, the less they get done. If this continues unchecked, it’ll kill productivity and increase burnout. And if you lose your best talent and have to replace them, you’ll lose more time and money too.

Why’s it happening?

It’s a habit

For far too long your people have accepted meetings without thinking (often because of who sent the invite). But also because they don’t realise it’s a waste of time, or don’t know how to say no. 

Recurring meetings are a classic time-drain. But one-off meetings also slip through the net because your people have a fear of missing out. 

Our research shows that a day is lost every week to pointless meetings that end up in the diary anyway.

Your diary only tells half the story

Look in your people’s diaries and you’ll see two things: a) meetings that have been booked by the owner and b) meetings booked by other people.

The rest of the time is left open for anyone to steal a free slot.  

Before you know it, your diary is full of other people’s priorities. Leaving you no time to do your job other than outside of working hours.

We do nothing to stop it

Parkinson’s Law tells us, “Activities will expand to fill the time available for their completion”.  

Before the pandemic, you were at least forced to end your working day to catch the last train. Working from home has removed that and the temptation to keep working is huge. Dipping in and out of work is too much to resist when your laptop is only a few steps away.

Change the story

This might sound bleak. It might sound hopeless. But there are some very simple ways to shine a light on how toxic your diary is and also how you can change the story.

Book time with yourself

As well as using your diary for meetings with other people, book time with yourself to do your job. This’ll also reduce the amount of time available for others to hijack your time with pointless meetings.  

If someone really needs time with you, force them to make a case for it.

Book time for yourself

Instead of living your life in the gaps between work, start working in the gaps between your life. 

If you want to get a life, you need to plan a life. 

Before you do anything else, plan time in your diary for your physical, spiritual and mental wellbeing. Parkinson’s Law means that when you reduce the space available for work you get it done in less time.

Interrupt the habit

Before automatically accepting a meeting, stop and ask yourself the following: 

Diary - What’s already in your diary at that time?

Evaluate - What value will the new meeting add?

Target - Will the new meeting deliver your personal targets?

Opportunity - Should you: Do it, Not do it or Delegate it?

Xchange - Accept or Reject the meeting and let people know.

If you make these part of your daily mindset your people will start to have more time to get things done, they'll get more time for themselves and you'll hold on to them for longer. 

This is only the beginning…

Want to see data and insight into how these challenges are risking your organisation and your people?

Let’s have a chat about a Diary Detox Discovery. This one-hour lunch and learn will give your people a new way of looking at their time and give you an insight into where you should focus your efforts to improve productivity, reduce burnout and retain your best talent.

Until next month.

If you want to book a chat to find out more about the Diary Detox Discovery, feel free to book a slot at https://diarydetox.as.me.