How to Do a Full Day’s Worth of Work in 90 Minutes
A guide for extreme focus and productivity
A lot has changed from the industrial age to today’s era of knowledge work. Except for one thing — the idea that the productive output per hour would be the same at all times during the day.
It might be true for physical labor or repetitive tasks but not for knowledge work. For instance, the amount of work I can get done between 8–10 am is five times more than what I can get done between 1–3 pm.
This is a truth that is often shoved under the carpet by both individuals as well as organizations. People only work productively for a few hours — in fact, I’m willing to bet we only get a couple of hours worth of work done in a typical 8-hour office day.
Where does the rest of the time go? In distractions. Checking social media, taking coffee breaks, procrastination, daydreaming, chatting, not doing the real work but everything around it, trying to appear busy by checking emails, smoke breaks, extended lunches, and so on.
At the risk of over-generalization, I’d say this way of working is the root cause of burnout.
The Gray Zone of Slack
Most of us spend our days not-really-working and not-really-resting. Everything is in the gray…
