Links:

Helen's business book: The Future of Time: how 're-working' time can help you boost productivity, diversity and wellbeing

'Why managing time at work is the new frontier’ HR Magazine

Register here for The Future of Time at Work public webinar in April

'Reclaim Time to Read' 2022 reading challenge:  https://www.helenbeedham.com/2022-reading-challenge

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

Transcript:

Helen: Over the past few weeks I’ve been talking to my podcast guests about their careers and about changes they’re implementing in their organisations to help their colleagues to flourish at work. I’ve also asked them about how they manage their own time at work; what systems and habits they’ve put in place to help them deal with heavy workloads, focus on the priorities and manage their boundaries. In this episode I’ve pulled together their collective wisdom on time management so grab your pen - and diary - and get inspired.

My very first guest on podcast was Winnie Doeswijk, Head of Global Organization Development at Novartis, the pharmaceutical and medicines company, juggles a very senior role and a busy family life. She has learnt to set a few personal ground rules, establish a rhythm to her work weeks, and regularly ask herself certain questions about how she is managing her time at work.

Winnie: Well, still looking for the magic formula, but there's a few things that I've, that I've found work better than others. First of all, I've established a few rules. I try to stick to the no work in the weekend rule. I don't have a problem to work some evenings in the week. I get a bit irritated if it's every evening in the week, but a few I don't mind.

 So I try to limit the time like there's work and there's life, you know, they can blend a bit, that's fine. But I need enough recuperation time and time for me and for the family t hat's not work, which is the weekend. Then I also block as much as possible early in the day and end of the day and lunchtime, so that I have some time to just read messages and there's, there's a few more operational things about how to block time in the day.

And then I think ahead of time, a year ahead. Who are the sorts of people that I need to talk with regularly? And is it weekly, bi-weekly monthly? What does the schedule look like? And then I schedule it slightly on the edge of light, that I just feel a little uncomfortable, like, oh, I could really talk to them more often. So rather than every two weeks I do every three weeks or every month I do every six weeks. And then if something important comes up, I want to have enough flexibility in my schedule to be able to pick up the phone and just have ad hoc conversations. So schedule the regular cadence a little light, all to make sure that I have enough working time in the day and in the week to just create blocks of time to do stuff. Cause sometimes you have to do something that just takes thinking time, like organize a workshop or write a report. So I try to keep enough blocks of time to do chunks of work.

So I think those are my more operational tips and then more mindset like is around: am I really needed? Is this really important right now? Who is this meeting or a piece of work for, is it for me or is it to benefit someone else? And what is therefore the role that I can play with on my own time commitment such that I still meet the needs of someone else without it costing an arm and a leg.

Helen: It’s so true, as Winnie says, that there is no magic formula to managing big workloads when the amount of work exceeds the amount of time we have. It does take discipline and a questioning mindset; and it requires us to pay attention to our own habits, including our tendency to get distracted, as my second guest Connson Locke acknowledged. Connson is Professorial Lecturer in Management at the London School of Economics, where she teaches leadership, organizational behaviour and negotiation and decision-making and she is also a psychologist, speaker and the author. This is Connson describing how she managed to write her book in a year whilst working in a full time role:

Connson: So I have to say I was much better at it before the pandemic. So when I was writing the book, which was in 2019, I was writing the book while working full time. But as an academic, you're allowed to have one day a week to focus on your research and so I took that one day a week to focus on my writing. So Monday was my writing day. And I set up a really nice home office which turned out to be very useful later on. But in 2019, I set up a very nice home office, and every Sunday I would start thinking about the book and then Monday I would spend the whole day in the home office just writing, and then Tuesday and the rest of the week, I was fully back at work.

And I found that that rhythm helped me a lot. Just knowing that I'm not thinking about the book right now, because it's not Monday. And then on the Sunday I start thinking about it, Monday I've got the whole day. It allowed me to get the book done in just over year.

I'm not always so disciplined with other things. So the one thing I need to get better at is not letting email distract me all the time. On the days when I'm actually able to turn off email for a few hours and focus on something else I find I'm way more productive than when I keep my email open, and every time something pops up, I'm like, oh, what's that? And then I find, if I'm dealing with email, I could spend the whole day on email and then I feel like I've done nothing. I have my to-do list and nothing got done.

If your book can convince organizations that it's bad for people to be available all the time, that would be a huge, huge accomplishment because I just think it is really detrimental. I'm lucky to work in academia where until the pandemic, there were very few things that were so urgent they had to be replied to within a few hours. Most things can at least wait a day. So I could take the Monday to write my book and even though I checked email just to make sure nothing was urgent, I could basically say I'll reply to that tomorrow. But I have students who work in organizations where they insist on using Slack, or you have to have your Teams on all the time and so people are pinging you, and sometimes it's WhatsApp, even. So you're being pinged all the time and no matter what you're working on, you're constantly being interrupted and you're expected to respond right away. That would just drive me insane.

Helen: Technology has profilerated in our workplaces and made so many things quicker and easier, including collaborating with each other. But it’s also true that if we don’t wrestle some control over technology, our email and messaging habits can really dictate how we spend our working time and eat away at our productivity.

My third guest was Gerry McQuade, formerly Chief Executive of BT’s combined enterprise business and now Chair of Forensic Analytics, an industry leading software training and consultancy business. He talked about how technology is transforming our working hours, whereby the traditional concept of fixed working hours is fading and morphing more into more fluid, varied working hours.

Gerry: actually through COVID what we saw in our business was that people's commute time became work time, and people thought there was a presenteeism required. So they sat by their computer or on a computer for ridiculous amounts of the day. And we didn't have a productivity problem through COVID; we had the opposite problem where people were working too long and we were trying to tell people that if you might take a break for half an hour in the morning and lunch it's not a big deal. But people feel obliged to be connected in the business and look as if they're busy and we need to make sure that people know that we understand the need for work-life balance. I actually do tend to the view that actually we need the business and the employee in this world to be more flexible? So the idea of everything being a nine-to-five or a fixed set of hours is very difficult in a world where we're becoming more global, customers and suppliers and whoever in different time zones. They all have different implications for how we run the business. Family will always come first. And therefore, if someone says "I need to take my child to here tomorrow morning, can I have some time off?" the smart answer is always to say yes. Unless there's some major problem you're going to tell me about, of course you can take the time off. Because actually they'll give you it back in spades. They know that you're recognizing their needs and they've got to recognize your needs.

I do think that dynamic of technology is the one that is going to continue to shift the way that we need more flexibility, from both businesses and staff. And I don't know quite how the contracts work on that, but you see it all the time. And in terms of how you deal with it, I think it's just trying to be personable and sensible and recognize that the business isn't everything in people's lives. It's a means to an end for most people, it's not an end in itself.

Helen: It’s interesting to hear Gerry talk about how the deal or contract between employer and employee is shifting and that it still has to work for both parties. When it does, it generates a deep sense of loyalty among people to the business they work for and in return, the business reaps the benefits over the longer-term.

My next guest Michelle Newton hilariously confessed to being nicknamed Hermione Grainger by her colleagues at the multinational GE Corporate, thanks to her highly organised and productive ways of working. In this clip, Michelle spills the beans on how she keeps on top of her demanding role as international benefits transition leader. I love how she uses her peak energy hours for the most cognitively demanding work - this is one of the learnings from neuroscience that I share in The Future of Time. Here’s Michelle:

Michelle: So in terms of how I structure and again, this would apply to GE and also my personal life, I'm hugely organized, probably bordering on the line of too obsessive with it, but I diarise everything. So everyone knows within GE and also my family, what I'm doing. So I'll block out time. I tend to do it on a Sunday for the following week, I will tend to structure, okay, what's going on in my working to how that's gonna happen in my family life.

 I'm hugely fortunate that GE is a massive fan of flexible working. So I do have that added advantage that I can balance both of those styles together but I'm quite selfish with my time. So if I have a meeting invite through work, I will ask what the agenda is, what the objective is from me. I'm not a fan of calls if they are like one hour I'll challenge: 'can we make that 45 minutes?' Because everybody's diary seems to be back to back calls and you cannot go from one call to the other and have that focus on your next calls. I always challenge: 'can we cut this down to 45 minutes?' So I have 15 minutes to digest maybe before my next call or just have a bit of a break.

 I also try and avoid calls on a Friday. And again, a GE policy well, kind of guidance to suggest if you can avoid calls on Friday, then do, because every call has an action. And what we don't want is to go into the weekend thinking, all right, I've got to deliver this for Monday or next week. So Friday is my opportunity to kind of prepare for the following week to say, okay, what admin or projects, or what have I got to get ready for the week? So I can focus purely on planning ahead and how I'm going to use my time. And then I know again with my personality, I'm a morning person. That's when you're going to get the best out of me, you know, probably from the hours of 6 till 12, that's my flourish time. So I plan my calls that I know I'm going to have to really be on the money for and focus then. If I have to do speaking or you know, presenting that's ideally when I would like to do it subject to time zones. And then towards the afternoon if there are other calls, I tend to try and make them where I'm listening only, or seminars where I'm dialing in. So again, paying attention, but not too much. I know that my sluggish zones are between probably two and four. So I'm fully aware of how I work like that, so I think it's helpful if everybody else could have that concept to say, actually I'm a morning or an afternoon or an evening person. And I think that definitely helps you managing your day and how you can deliver things more efficiently.

Helen: It’s so easy for us to just fall into habits around how we spend our time between the moment we wake up and the moment we go to bed and we don't always think that often about is that really the best way or the way I want to be spending my time? As the pandemic stretched on, it prompted another guest, SunHee Park, a senior lawyer working in the international capital markets, to be much more thoughtful and intentional about how she spent her time each day.

SunHee: So it's been a journey depending on the other things that were going on in my life, obviously. I had very little flexibility when my kids were young. My arrangement has always been that I would be able to work late one day a week, but for four days I was the primary caregiver for my children who took over from the nanny.

So that lasted for quite a few years. And now that my kids - one's out the door, the other one's almost out the door - Yeah, that is no longer an issue. But when I used to go into the office, work life balance was a little bit better like I said. Sure, my work day revolved around what time zones I was dealing with but aside from that, I made sure that I could fit in two or three sessions of going to the gym, whereas that completely during lockdown working from home. It's going to take a conscious effort because I think like a lot of people, I thought all of this will be over by the year end this year. Because of Omicron, this seems to be going on and on, and who knows what other variants there are going to be? And what other measures are going to be taken? In the absence of the pandemic dying down completely and us being able to resume our lives, I think each of us, as individuals, have to take responsibility for our own health, mental and physical, and decide for ourselves what works best for me. I was in a temporary mode thinking that, when we shut down in March of last year in 2020, nobody had any idea that it was going to go on for this long, that we'd be working from home for that long. And so I just didn't plan in terms of this is how my life should look like. This is what my day should look like. I found myself working, turning on my computer on around nine o'clock and then switching off at around 10 o'clock at night. So there's very little time to fit anything else in between. So I think you have to make a conscious effort to make sure that you are ok; to live your life and have your day the way that you have it. And it does take effort.

Helen: SunHee’s observations remind me of how, from time to time, we can really benefit from pausing to reflect on the way we’re working and asking ourselves whether this is still working successfully for us - whether it’s helping us stay healthy or not, whether we need to make any adjustments or trial some new habits, in order for us to work more effectively and be a better colleague, boss, supplier, mentor, friend or family member.

In episode 6 I talked with Mitra Janes who leads on Diversity & Inclusion for two out of three of HSBC's global businesses. We got talking about the behaviours that are accepted as the norm in terms of how we spend our time at work.

Mitra: I think I've worked in such different environments. So if I think about some environments that I've worked in where there's almost this clock watching approach of we get to four o'clock and this part of the business will just stop because you're not paying overtime and our hours are done and it doesn't matter what's going on. It doesn't matter what crisis; I will literally just pack up my laptop and I'm done for the day. And so I've seen that amongst whole teams and whole parts of the organization. And you know, when people are looking through my career, it won't be difficult to mix match which organizations I'm talking about.

If I then think about other organizations where your status depends on how busy you are. So the whole narrative that you create around yourself is being busy and that equating making lots of money and being very successful. And so what behaviours does that drive? And just the way you talk about yourself and the way you talk about what you're doing and the way you approach your work is coming from the sense of, I must demonstrate my busyness and my busyness doing quite specific things, not busyness doing personal growth or coaching junior colleagues, or thinking about creating an inclusive culture, but against quite narrow defined activities; I am very busy.

Helen: Mitra makes a great point which is that our time culture varies from organisation to organisation, depending on the industry, the size and maturity of the business and the leadership approach. What are the unspoken habits in your organisation? What earns you status and rewards, in terms of how you spend your time? What’s the accepted narrative where you work?

My final guest of series 1 was Ali Trauttmansdorff who is an international HR Director in investment banking. She works in one of the most fast-paced industries and most time-pressured environments, and on top of that, she manages global teams. In this next clip she describes how she has learnt to give her time away carefully and to be mindful about how much of other people’s time she is asking for, particularly when she’s requesting a meeting. That doesn’t mean she’s difficult to reach or get some face-time with, in fact she has a great tip for how to make time in your working week for spontaneous conversations with colleagues.

Alison: Yeah, time is, as you rightly say, it's a constant, challenge and I think in many industries, people love to talk, people love meetings, so you can very easily create yourself quite large problems with your diaries and I've seen that for sure. I always encourage teams to be really disciplined about how they ask other people for time. If you want a meeting, have a reason for a meeting, have an agenda for the meeting and also be economic with the amount of time you're asking other people to give, because in my kind of role, for example, my whole day could be meetings if I let it happen. And that takes, I think, a little bit of spontaneity out of the day, because we all talk about the water cooler moments that we've missed during the pandemic.

If you're wall to wall with meetings you don't get those moments, even if you're inside the office, if things have gone out of control. So I do think that agendas, being economic with time is incredibly important, but you need to have that agreement in your team and with other people and be vocal about it otherwise time can literally run away with itself. Sometimes people block times in their diary for certain things, for reading, obviously, for those spontaneous moments. I sometimes put times in my diary that I say, look, this is kind of like my clinic time. If people want to drop in, during that time I'll just be in my office doing things and it's no problem to come in and interrupt me. So I think you do have to be very creative and thoughtful about planning out, at least your next couple of days in advance. And if you are very fortunate to have a PA, or assistant, work very closely with them, to figure out how to make the best use of your time and of others.

Helen: And Alison goes on to explain how we can acknowledge and accommodate people’s different needs and preferences regarding their working hours and patterns, and this helps create more inclusive workplaces.

Alison: I think also from a D&I point of view as well, it's incredibly important. And we owe that to each other, you know, people that have caring responsibilities, parents, people who have interests that they want to participate at certain times of the day, it's important. Again, know your employees, know your colleagues, because if you understand more about people's lives more broadly and people are able to bring themselves to work wholly then you will be more respectful about the challenges that they have, their time in the morning or in the evening, depending on what it is they need to focus. So it's that flexibility piece, sometimes people want to, or need to disappear off to pick someone up or go and see an elderly relative, but they're perfectly happy to have a call later on the evening. That's how they've decided to work and, and spread their day out. So yeah, let's be more open-minded, let's be talking to each other about how time can be used more effectively and flexibly.

Helen: I’d love to hear what you’re taking away with you from these conversations - do drop me a line or a post or tweet to let me know. As for me, I’m going to watch my language and my narrative about being busy all of the time, something I know I’m definitely guilty of. I’m going to remember to celebrate the slow time, the down time and the social time and make that part of my narrative too. As a parent, I don’t want to unwittingly be teaching our daughter that being constantly busy is the only way to live.

And that’s it! We’ve come to the end of series 1. If something in particular caught your interest, don’t forget that all the links and show notes are at www.helenbeedham.com/podcast. If you’ve enjoyed listening, please do share the podcast with friends and on social media and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts, to help other listeners to discover it too. Series 2 kicks off after Easter with a new line up of brilliant guests, so do join me then for more conversations about The Business of Being Brilliant.