I’m pretty sure my UPS delivery guy is heading to Vegas tomorrow. His truck was rumbling my body two hours earlier than usual today. Have you ever noticed on a normal week you’re working constantly until the last hour of your workweek? Then a week comes around where you’ll be missing a couple days of work for a vacation. Notice how you’re still able to get all of your work done? You even get your work done a bit early to verify your airline reservations are all in order.
So it’s obvious my UPS guy was getting his job done early preparing for a Vegas vacation. I’m not saying that the UPS guy is normally lazy. Every UPS guy I’ve seen runs at a speed that makes me question his drug sobriety. The fact is, though, that workload expands to fill the time allotted for it. Even the busiest among us aren’t running at their full capacity. (Parkinson’s Law)
While it takes a retired grandma 5 hours to write a letter to her grandson, a busy executive will write 50 lengthy emails before he finishes his first cup of coffee. The granny only has one item on her to-do-list, so it takes her a while to get started. She prepares a cup of tea, finds a comfortable chair, arranges her stationary neatly, outlines what she wants to say to her grandson, etc. The executive doesn’t have the luxury of time.
Although you wouldn’t like to admit it, most of us fall nearer the grandma than the executive in a workload continuum. Most of us aren’t actually that overworked. But we feel it so we get stressed out and our creativity gets stifled. Imagine if we were going to Vegas tomorrow, though. How would we approach our work differently?
I can’t tell you exactly how to get your work done early so you have time to relax. I can’t tell you what items to cut out of your workday to help you become more efficient. The tiny things that suck my time away are so inconsequential and random that I couldn’t list them all.
I can, however, tell you that you do have the time to finish your work without stressing. You have the time to give yourself a little relaxation and recharge your creative battery. Take advantage of that fact. Be creative and stress-free.
Good stuff. Reminds me of this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/triple-your-…
Good stuff. Reminds me of this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/triple-your-…