Today's Reading
HOW WISELY ARE YOU USING YOUR TIME?
The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot.
— Michael Altshuler
A few years ago, I came across a meme that was going viral on the internet. It read, 'You have the same number of hours in the day as Beyoncé.'
I immediately thought, 'Hell yeah, I do!' But this was quickly followed by, 'So why haven't I sold more than 100 million records world-wide while parenting twins and championing important feminist causes globally? What on earth have I been doing with my life!?'
I convinced myself it was simply my vocal abilities and the fact that my fertilised egg failed to split in utero that had got in the way of achieving such heights. But it did make me wonder: Do high achievers use their time differently to the rest of us?
Now, unless you are Beyoncé (and let's face it, she's not the target market for this book), you are possibly thinking, 'Maybe they do, but they also have a posse of people to help them deal with an over- flowing inbox, serve nutritionally balanced chef-prepared dinners every night, and clean weird stains and smells from their toilet. My life is chaotic and busy! And I have to scrub my own toilet!'
I hear you. As do millions of other people around the world.
Research from the World Health Organization suggests we are working longer than ever before. In 2016, 488 million people globally worked more than 55 hours per week. While you might think that's not so bad—well, it is. Working 55-plus hours a week increases our chance of having a stroke or heart disease by 35 per cent and 17 per cent respectively when compared to working a standard 35 to 40-hour week. Hard work is literally killing us.
And that nasty little virus called COVID didn't help matters.
A survey of nearly 3000 professionals in America found that 70 per cent of those who moved to remote work during the pandemic were now working on weekends. Forty-five percent said they were working more hours since the shift to working from home than they were when they were in the office.
In research that spanned sixty-five countries, software giant Atlassian found that Australians' daily average working hours increased by 32 minutes per day during COVID. And Microsoft's 2021 annual Work Trend Index found that time spent in video meetings has more than doubled thanks to the pandemic, with the average meeting now being 10 minutes longer. And we all know how enthralling and life-enriching video meetings are.
To make matters even worse, we have never been so bombarded with digital messages. According to the Microsoft report, we are sending 45 per cent more chat messages per week compared to pre-pandemic levels, and 42 per cent more chat messages after hours. And we sent 40.6 billion more emails in February 2021 than February 2020. So if you feel as if you are drowning every time you venture into your inbox, you are most definitely not alone.
And just for fun, let's throw virtual school into the mix. That's another full-time nightmare, I mean job, right there. Hopefully that job is well and truly behind us by the time this book hits shelves.
Perhaps it's no surprise that Microsoft reported that 40 per cent of employees around the world were thinking of leaving their employer in 2021.
Work life is tough.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
Back in January 2018, my life was busy. I was running a management consultancy with ambitious growth targets as well as being a mum, a daughter, a friend, a housekeeper and so on. I felt as if I was rushing from one thing to the next, yet somehow I still found hours to scroll through Instagram every week. Priorities, right?
Because it was January, the official month of fresh starts, I was reflecting on the year just passed and what I had achieved. Sure, my business, Inventium, was going well and we were doing great work. But what had I personally done? I had replied to thousands of emails in a very timely manner. I had sent a lot of well-crafted emails, too. I had reacted to requests from my team most hours of every day. I had sat in hundreds of meetings and contributed intelligent-sounding thoughts. But had I done my best work? Not really.
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