What is Your Perfect Work Schedule?
Sunday, June 21st, 2009
I asked my Twitter followers, “I love working 10-12 hour days with long breaks (30min – 1 hr) every couple of hours. What are your perfect working hours?” Two of my favorite responses were…
AndRam @workhappynow i work 10 to 2 pm. take a long lunch break and then back around 4 or 5 till 8 or 9…1:16 PM May 3rd from twhirl in reply to workhappynow
LilianChisca @workhappynow I use the 60/60/30 Formula I learned from @ebenpagan’s Wake Up Productive video trainings.12:29 PM May 3rd from TweetDeck in reply to workhappynow
He went on to explain:
LilianChisca @workhappynow That’s two 1 hour focused blocks of time (w/10 min break on the end for each) followed by a 30 min renewal.12:30 PM May 3rd from TweetDeck in reply to workhappynow
We get too caught up in working certain schedules or hours because other people want us to work, rather than doing what is actually best for our productivity.
I know that we can’t escape the boss’s demands, but we can try to make small changes every week until we are closer to our perfect schedule.
So now I ask you…
“What would be your perfect work schedule?”
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Penelope Trunk’s blog is dynamic and thought provoking. It forces me to look at my own career from fresh angles. 5 Steps to Making Yourself Great is one of my most recent favorites.
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You can follow me on Twitter, @workhappynow, to get your quick work happiness fix.
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If you liked this post then try these on for size:
- How to Build Confidence at Work
- Creating A Project Ritual to Encourage Happines
- The Magic of Allowing Employees to Do What They Love
I try to create an ideal structure by doing the following:
- increase my power hours
- increase my creative hours
- spend more time in my strengths
- spend less time in my weaknesses
- focus on effectiveness and efficiency
- focus on outcomes over activities
- spend more time with catalysts than drains
It’s really less about time spent and more about how I spend my time.
I’ve recently reshuffled my organization and work schedule to be more productive all around.
My problem is I’m the type of person who when I start something, I want to finish it – now. As a result, other projects suffer.
I’ve implemented a spread sheet with anywhere from half hour to hour long blocks of time for given tasks I must complete each day.
It’s working, because here I am commenting on your blog, one I’ve been meaning to visit but just haven’t until now.
Hi J.D., increasing your power hours is a great way of putting it. I’m in the process of doing this myself. My power hours are from 10am – 2pm and 8pm – 10:30pm. I need to expand these hours and I’m slowly working on this.
Hi John, a spread sheet is a great idea. When you can break down where your time is going. You can adjust your focus appropriately.
It’s funny how that works with “power hours.” Must be tied to biorhythms…
For me, ideal is seven or eight AM till about noon, with short breaks roughly every hour.
But late nights into the early hours of the morning – say ten or eleven PM till 2 AM – is also a good time frame for me.
Hi Karl: I work best if I work for 45 minutes and then take a ten minute break to stretch, close my eyes, and maybe do something fun for a little while.
Hi Paul, That’s a long day. Hope you can squeeze in a nap during the afternoons.
Hi Marelisa, working hard then giving yourself some “me” time is a great technique.
My most productive work schedule is early morning, about 7:30 AM until about noon, non-stop. After lunch, I just get way to tired and usually become less than half as productive in the morning. I try to schedule all of my meetings in the morning so that I’m clear headed and can completely focus on the task at hand.
My ideal schedule is to start about 7 or 7:30 a.m.–assuming I don’t have to commute any farther than my living room–then take a short break about 10 a.m., eat some lunch while working (at my dining room table)and be finished by about 1:30 in the afternoon. I used to be able to telecommute once a week, and I found the above schedule worked really well for me. I generally find that by the time I get to work (some time between 8 and 8:30)after an hour long commute on public transit and having been up since 5 a.m., I’m already feeling as though the productive edge has evaporated away. I find that for myself, it’s the environment (both physical and interpersonal/emotional) as well as–or perhaps even more so than–the schedule that impacts my productivity and overall happiness at work.