Jennifer Baker

As we’re approaching mid-year, many of you will perhaps be thinking about summer holidays, or you may simply be wondering where the time has gone.

Three significant issues are increasingly challenging in the workplace. Internal communication, internal relationships and lack of time. So what do these have to do with thinking about summer holidays, or about time racing away? The poet WH Davies had interesting insight with his poem ‘Leisure’, published more than 100 years ago. The first two lines are: ‘What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.’ It ends: ‘A poor life this if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.’

If you were to analyse the habits of successful people in the workplace, beyond their technical capability in post, the significant attributes that contribute to their success include:

  • Good communication with people across all levels of the organisation, which leads to…
  • Good relationships with people at all levels across the organisation
  • The ability to focus on what matters, which leads to…
  • Better time management, which leads to…
  • Better productivity, performance and results

We understand the principles of good communication and work relationships, and accept the need to spend quality time with people, to use email less and so on… but why doesn’t common sense prevail? Does it really need government intervention such the French proposal to ban emails after hours or a radical change in thinking to a six-hour working day like the Swedes?

What is the core problem? Coming back to Davies, it’s the prioritisation of what matters most. Think about it. When you’re on holiday, and completely unplugged from work (and I mean completely), it gives you time to think. Your brain slows down and the ability to think more clearly increases. You start to see things from other perspectives and get better clarity and with that better focus and decisions.

You may believe you don’t have time at work for free thinking, but this thinking itself is part of the problem. The solution is simple: make time in your weekly schedule to think and plan. Try it - just 30 minutes, once a week. Unplug, think and plan to ‘stop and stare’.

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