A wise man once told me he could determine what I value most by two instruments. Viewing my checkbook and my calendar he could determine what I deemed most important in my life. Where do I spend my time? Where do I spend my resources? These two variables provide a great deal of reality for any person as to what they esteem to be most important.
I think the same is true about how we go about doing our daily work. Where do we spend our time? Where do we spend our resources? In this case there things we need to measure are more difficult to define because it will vary for each person and the role they play in their employment. Here’s something I don’t think a lot of companies consider as a valuable use of a resource.
Recently, while having a regular meeting with my boss, which is something I think is often lost as being valuable, we were talking about the importance of physical conditioning, and the impact it can have on performance. We both recognized the benefits of exercise in our daily jobs, since we sit the majority of the day. His previous employer even had exercise equipment and showers in the office allowing them to exercise during the work day.
So, we committed together to take our lunch break daily and go to a nearby location and get in 40 minutes of exercise. It isn’t a big amount of exercise, so we aren’t going to become marathon runners with the time we are committing. What we are finding is that by exercising during our lunch break we are able to focus much better in the afternoon. Our productivity appears (we don’t have any scientific measurements) to have increased, primarily from better quality and fewer mistakes.
Because working with information technology tends to be a very sedentary occupation, I have found this one hour timeout in the middle of the day to be a boost for me. Do you have tips you have found that help you increase your productivity? If so, please leave a comment for others to read.
Cheers,
Ben