Americans work more, seem to accomplish less
I’ve not blogged at all for the last couple of months. I’m just overwhelmed lately, maybe even a bit burned out. My day job has been intense as we prepare an updated ComputerTime for release. I’ve had a lot going on in my personal life too. Time to reorganize my weeks and force some time to reenergize.
Back in February there was study that had this to say about how our productivity is affected:
The biggest culprit is the technology that was supposed to make work quicker and easier, experts say.
“Technology has sped everything up and, by speeding everything up, it’s slowed everything down, paradoxically,” said John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The trick is to let technology speed everything up without letting yourself get “sped up” along with it. A year ago, when the Kaiser Family Foundation came out with it’s Generation M report they talked about how there is more multitasking going on, and that kids are doing a lot more of it. Generation M wears that like a badge and they think they’re accomplishing more by doing all of this multitasking. The truth is that context switches are expensive and there is no substitute for focusing on a task and getting it done without interruption, when it comes to being productive.
“We never concentrate on one task anymore. You take a little chip out of it, and then you’re on to the next thing,” Challenger said on Wednesday. “It’s harder to feel like you’re accomplishing something.”
Unlike a decade ago, US workers are bombarded with email, computer messages, cellphone calls, voice mails and the like, research showed.
The average time spent on a computer at work was almost 16 hours a week last year, compared with 9,5 hours a decade ago, according to the Day-Timer research released this week.
…
“We think we’re faster, smarter, better with all this technology at our side and in the end, we still feel rushed and our feeling of productivity is down,” said Maria Woytek, marketing communications manager for Day-Timers, a unit of ACCO Brands.
Being a software developer, I log that amount in less than two days.
But if people are being bombarded with emails and phone calls, then who’s doing that bombarding, but other people! The availability and ubiquitousness of these technologies causes people to be less thoughtful of other people’s time and it’s also led to this notion that everything can be done in realtime. Instant messaging is even a better example of this. I’ve lost count of the number of people who have told me that I should install AOL IM, and their rationale was essentially that this way, they don’t have to call me or email me when I have a “quick question”, they can just IM me. No consideration whatsoever as to what I’m doing. I guess I’m there just to answer their questions in a timely fashion — in realtime. Hence, why I’ve always referred to it as “Instant Interruption”.
Expectations that technology would save time and money largely haven’t been borne out in the workplace, said Ronald Downey, professor of psychology who specializes in industrial organization at Kansas State University.
“It just increases the expectations that people have for your production,” Downey said.
“The irony is the very expectation of getting more done is getting in the way of getting more done,” he said. “People are stressed out.”
Which is where I have been lately and why I’ve had to just say no to blogging during this stressful time.
I’ll be continuting to work to get out of that stressed-out state very consciously in the next month or two. I’m looking forward to spring and doing some local hiking on the trails near where I live, and with the summer coming, I’ll be taking more time out with the kids and doing some chilling at the beach.
So if you don’t see me blogging here, then I’m still stressed. If you see in increase in posts, then the de-stressing regimen is working.
I hope I haven’t lost all my readers in the past two months!
Reuters article where these quotes came from is here.
Posted: March 28th, 2006 under Uncategorized.
Comments: 5