A roadmap is a visualized plan of what you want to build overtime. A great product roadmap communicates the ‘why’ and the ‘what’, whereas a product backlog communicates the ‘how.’

What is a Product Roadmap? 

<ul><li>They provide vision and direction to your team</li><li>They ensure all teams are on the same page when it comes to product priorities and provides transparency to all stakeholders. </li><li>They allow for feedback and consensus so all team members and stakeholders can buy in to the proces</li></ul>

Why Are Product Roadmaps Important?

A roadmap is akin to using a compass to figure out which direction you need to travel. Roadmaps provide vision and clarity but by no means are they inflexible or the answer to everything. A great PM has the ability to adapt to and/or foresee market shifts happening and make changes to their roadmap and strategy accordingly.

Can Roadmaps Change/Evolve? 

<ol><li>Evolving customer, business or industry needs may require changing up your roadmap in order to address them in order to get the most impact.</li><li>Analytics Data - You may think that the feature you’re working on will revolutionize the customer experience, but if the metrics show otherwise, you have to evaluate whether or not to go back to the drawing board or to scrap the idea altogether. </li><li>Early Stage Product Idea - Similar to evolving needs, early stage products can sometimes change strategy and direction overnight due to unforeseen circumstances (similar to a startup).</li></ol>

Few Reasons Why Roadmaps Can Change... 

There are many different ways you and your team can build a product roadmap. Each type of product roadmap serves a specific purpose that should match the needs of your team, stakeholders, and customers.<ol><li>Status-Oriented</li><li>Theme-Oriented</li><li>Outcome-Oriented</li></ol>

Types Of Product Roadmaps

A status-oriented roadmap allows everyone to better understand where the team is currently at, without necessarily committing to any kind of time frame. It’s organized into three columns that are based around the status of each deliverable—now, next, and later. It helps with prioritization. It also gives room for the next and later columns to change. Each item (typically an epic) shown on this roadmap should align to a higher level organization goal or strategic objective (e.g. Increase ARR by 5%).

Status-Oriented Roadmap

Theme-oriented roadmaps are a way to communicate the value that will be delivered to the users, without describing exactly what the team will deliver within that theme.This keep the team focused on solving the larger problem at hand, and anytime something else is brought up, it’s easy to ask one another if it fits into the theme of the current time period. Theme-oriented product roadmaps are quarterly based.Once your stakeholders align on those themes, you can nest epics beneath those themes. This allows team to get a better understanding of how the work ties to the larger business goals.

Theme-Oriented Roadmaps

Where it differs to theme-oriented roadmaps is what’s at the highest level: an outcome. An outcome is defined as “something that follows as a result or consequence.” By agreeing on the outcomes you will be driving toward, it leaves full power to the team to define the solution. Most stakeholders don’t really care about a specific feature you are working on. But, what problems the team is working to solve. e.g., an outcome that a product team may be working to solve could be, “Improve our day-7 app retention rate by 10%.” Then, it’s up to the team to figure out how to make that happen.

Outcome-Oriented Roadmaps

No matter the approach you choose for your roadmap, you’ll follow a general roadmapping process to get the ball rolling. <ol><li>Establish organizational and product goals with your team</li><li>Determine how your product can achieve said goals (this should be a group collaboration with your team)</li><li>Create a draft roadmap</li><li>Ask for feedback from your team</li><li>Get stakeholders’ buy-in to the roadmap</li></ol>

How to Build a Product Roadmap

A product roadmap is a visualized plan of what you want to build for your set of features over time.

productivity

Productivity

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

communication

Communication

timemanagement

Time Management

teamwork

Teamwork

Product Roadmap Guide: Why It’s Important And Types 

We often use the phrase “Time is Money” to depict the importance of time in our life. But, is it an accurate analogy? Because, unlike money, the time once spent can never be earned back. It is like a one-way road with no U-turn.

Time Is Money 

After a Life itself, time is the second most precious thing in the world. The best thing about time is that it is unbiased. You’ve got the same 24 hours in your day like any other living being. It changes for no one. And the worst thing about time is that it isn’t your friend. It doesn’t stop or slow down for anyone.

An average human life expectancy is around 75 years. This is the total amount of time you have which includes your schooling, higher studies, job, sleep, and all other daily chores. Though you can skip some of these activities, others can’t be skipped at all.Going to work is necessary to earn money and have food and shelter for your family. Sleeping is mandatory to stay healthy. Similarly, eating, cleaning, grooming, and parenting are also essential for a balanced life. All these tasks consume time. So, the question arises, <a href="https://link.medium.com/VaLGvvZIvpb">“How much time do you really have?” </a>

Oxford conducted a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sleep/article-pdf/41/12/zsy182/27090248/zsy182.pdf">study </a>that shows that sleeping for 8 hours a day results in better cognitive abilities. That’s 25 years straight out of your total lifespan of 75 years. Now you’re left with only 50 years.

Working 8 hours a day for 45 years (from age of 20 till 65) costs 10 years in total. Watching television daily for an hour, using social media for 2 hours, and watching a movie twice a month combined together consume another 9 years of your life. You spend 6 years doing daily household work like cooking, cleaning, etc. Around 4 years are spent eating and drinking. Similarly, 3.5 years on education, 2.5 years on grooming, another 2.5 years on shopping, 2 years on daily travel, and 1.5 years on childcare. Sighs!

Eventually, you’ll be left with only 9 years ! That’s the total amount of time you have. No matter what you do, the time keeps on moving and you have to race against the clock to get things done. Those who do not understand the importance of time can easily be found wasting their time by doing things like <ul><li>Complaining about everyone and everything. </li><li>Repeating the same mistakes. </li><li>Comparing themselves with others. </li><li>Waiting for the right time. </li><li>Talking without taking any action. </li><li>Having fear of failure. </li><li>Lack of priorities. </li><li>Trying to please others and worry about their opinions. </li> </ul>

If you’re doing any of the above things, you need to stop doing it NOW. Time is limited. The days you’re living will never come back. Every second you’re spending is part of those limited years you’ve left. So, you need to optimize it in order to make the best out of each and every moment of your life. Time is precious; more precious than money. And that is why Time Management should be your topmost priority.

There are many ways to manage your time while increasing your efficiency. You can change your sleeping patterns, create a to-do list, set up reminders, or download time management apps. But if you do not understand the importance of time, all those things will be of no use.Time is the only thing you cannot buy or barter. No matter how much you’re willing to spend or what you have to offer in exchange. You can save yourself from the guilt of wasting it if you can learn to manage it now. It will not only help with a disciplined and successful career, but it’ll also help you to stay ahead in life

Time management starts with fast thinking and faster decision-making abilities. If you can think fast, you take lesser time to decide, and then you will have extra time in stock for yourself. Below are some basic things you need to remember to be a fast thinker: <ul><li>Always prefer time over money. </li><li>Narrow down your options. </li><li>Listen to your gut feeling. </li><li>Be prepared for the unexpected. </li><li>Differentiate between good and bad choices. </li><li>Remember indecision is the worst decision. </li> </ul>

Time Management 

We all want to make the best out of the 24 hours we get each day. Some people manage to be successful, happy, and contained in the same time period, while others struggle to find their aim and are unable to stay focused. This results in the wastage of the most precious thing that we have i.e. Time. Time management is a process of organizing and utilizing the available time in order to maximize productivity. Though time is limited, there’s no such thing as a shortage of time. In order to make the best out of the available time, you’ll need to manage it properly.

Benjamin Franklin said, “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” With distractions all around, it is now more important than ever to manage your time. Using 10 quick time management tips below, you can easily organize your time to achieve success in life.

<ol><li>Complete the most important task first thing in the morning </li><li>Use a calendar and add a “To-do” list to it. </li><li>Do not multitask. </li><li>Do not stick to small things. Move on. </li><li>Learn to say NO. </li><li>Do not answer each and every unnecessary call or text. </li><li>Track the time you spend on each activity. </li><li>Instead of waiting for inspiration, do it NOW. </li><li>Outsource unimportant things as much as you can. </li><li>Set up a time limit for everything you do. </li> </ol>

Thanks a lot for reading! If you like the article, please support by visiting the actual link and liking it there.Or you can simply click <a href="https://link.medium.com/VaLGvvZIvpb">here</a>.

The End

We often use the phrase “Time is Money” to depict the importance of time in our life. But, is it an accurate analogy? Because, unlike money, the time once spent can never be earned back. It is like a…

habits

Habits

How Much Time Do You Really Have?

“Multitasking is the ability to screw everything up simultaneously.” — Jeremy ClarksonYou may think you can do everything right now, but you can’t — and you shouldn’t. This goes against what so many of us have learned and, in many cases, fine-tuned over decades. We’re used to juggling five balls at once and repeatedly switching between tasks.We’re lying to ourselves if we think we’re effective.

Multitasking is Making you Dumb.

Many studies have shed light on the downside of multitasking — trying to juggle multiple tasks at one time. One often cited study from Stanford University found that people who multitask are more easily distracted, less productive, score lower on tests for recalling information, and make more errors.Our brains are not wired to multitask well… When people think they’re multitasking, they’re just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost in doing so.”

Our brains weren’t built to multitask.

A better alternative is monotasking. Monotasking, also known as single-tasking, is the practice of dedicating yourself to a given task and minimizing potential interruptions until the job is completed or a significant period has elapsed. So how do you monotask? Try the nine tips below.

Monotasking

Time spent being physically active away from your screen improves your performance when you return. It can boost energy levels, reduce stress and give your mind the perspective it needs to problem solve and join the dots in your thinking.

1. Give your brain a break.

While you may think a quick glance at your phone in the morning won’t cause any harm, it can be a major drain on your productivity. Checking your phone as soon as you wake up will put you into a reactive state of mind. Give yourself time to properly wake up. Wait at least an hour before checking your phone.

2. Don’t start your morning by looking at your phone

Make a list of tasks that you need to complete and list them in the priority that they need to be done. This way, each of your tasks will get your full focus, and you’ll make sure that the most crucial ones are completed. If you don’t get through everything on your list, move those items to the next day.

3. Create a list of daily priorities


Do your best to eliminate distractions throughout the day. Turn off your email, text messages, and social media notifications while you are completing tasks. If your problem is at work, consider booking time on your calendar for focused work so that coworkers won’t interrupt

4. Reduce or eliminate outside distractions


Set a specific time each day to check email, social media, and text messages. This can be your lunch break or a set period of time before you leave the office.

5. Set a time for distractions


Sometimes you may find yourself multitasking because you took on a task you don’t really have time for. Don’t be afraid to say no when asked to complete additional tasks. Be aware of how much is on your plate and how long it will take to complete. If you can’t fit any more in your day, simply decline. There’s no need to provide a long explanation; keep it short and simple.

6. Be prepared to say no


Messes can be distracting. Organize your desk so that you can tackle one thing at a time. You also might want to consider removing distracting knickknacks that can pull your attention away from the task at hand.

7. Keep work areas clean and organized


You should schedule work that is challenging and requires a lot of focus for the time of day when your attention and drive are at their peak. For example, if you are a morning person, tackle these projects first thing after you get to work. If you attempt to complete these tasks when you are physically or mentally fatigued, your mind will be more likely to wander.

8. Be sure to unitask during your prime time


The first step in breaking a habit is being aware of it. If you find yourself constantly multitasking, choose a day to log everything you do so that you can identify patterns that lead to your distractions and be mindful of them in the future. Pls Follow me and have a great week:))

9. Be aware of your multitasking habits


Not only are we bad at doing many things at once, but it can actually be harmful to try.

You may think you can do everything right now, but you can’t — and you shouldn’t. This goes against what so many of us have learned and, in many cases, fine-tuned over decades. We’re used to juggling…

problemsolving

Problem Solving

Multitasking is making you dumb.

(1) Task Breakdown. Are most people aware that the knowledge work skills above even exist — let alone breaking them down into their individual micro-tasks?(2) Measurement how long each task takes. Do most people track their time? If so, are they tracking their micro-tasks?(3) Experiment to find the one best way. Are people simply using good-enough rules of thumb or are they using the scientific method to find the optimal approach?(4) Train for standardization. Once the optimal approach has been figured out, are most people being trained in them?

The 50x Productivity Framework (PART 1)

(5) Productivity doesn’t make us a machine. One of the main reasons science has progressed so far is tools that help us get finer grain, objective perspectives on reality than our senses can. I now understand how timing myself and building a granular, objective map of my thought/action process can augment my humanness rather than stunting it. (6) Small productivity gains aren’t frivolous. Amazing productivity gains come from small hacks, which individually seem frivolous, but together add up to mind-boggling change.

The 50x Productivity Framework (PART 2)

Just like the microscope unveiled entire universes of organisms (viruses, germs) and matter (quarks, atoms), finer attention to detail opens a whole new world of productivity. (7) Knowledge work productivity can be 50x’d. Knowledge work is still in its infancy. This means that the potential gains we can have with the existing tools may be much larger than anyone thinks. (8) Productivity is essential to non-productivity. The more efficient we are at work individually and collectively, the more time we have to carve out for slow, deep living not based on optimization.

The 50x Productivity Framework (PART 3)

(9) It’s worth each of us individually spending hundreds (if not thousands) of hours improving our productivity. “We realized that the true problem, the true difficulty, and where the greatest potential is — is building the machine that makes the machine. In other words, it’s building the factory. I’m really thinking of the factory like a product.” Elsewhere,

If you want to be more productive, you need to build your knowledge factory first.

Peter Drucker, one of the most respected management thinkers in history, stated these words at the close of the 20th century. Drucker isn’t just talking about 50x productivity for the smartest…

corporateculture

Corporate Culture

leadershipandmanagement

Leadership & Management

In 1911, a genius revealed a forgotten science of how to be 50x more productive without working…

Digital decluttering has become as essential as brushing your teeth twice a day. Especially now, when the knowledge industry has mass moved to online and remote work. Our mental wellbeing and productivity can suffer great consequences unless we learn to keep our online spaces tidy and organized. Fragmented attention span, exhaustion, overwhelm and irritability are just some of the symptoms of a messy digital space.In this article, we’ll take a look at the risks digital clutter brings with it, and how to start cleaning out your digital workspace.

A Digital Declutter

In short, to declutter your digital space means to clear out your computer, phone, or tablet (or all three) of all the apps and files you’re no longer using.It means learning to accept that a lot of your programs, apps, and extensions are optional, while only a handful have an actual purpose, both in your work and personal life. But I can already hear you wonder: “Do I even need a digital declutter?” Maybe you’re managing just fine because you know exactly where everything is.

What is Decluttering

But, what about all those files you’ve forgotten about, that are collecting dust in your disk space? Just because you don’t use them doesn’t mean they’re harmless. Digital clutter can actually have adverse psychological effects on knowledge workers. In this day and age, we’re encouraged to gather vast amounts of information and store them for future use, potential career opportunities, learning materials, etc.Additionally, there is another type of digital clutter masking as a beneficial thing every knowledge worker should possess.

Adverse Psychological Effects 

While we know that overexposure to social media and digital content overall can be damaging to our personal lives, we often overlook its impact on careers. Knowledge workers rely on digital spaces for growth, staying updated, and connecting. We’ve perpetuated the idea that being online is the only way to never miss a career opportunity. That includes countless social media accounts — LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, Quora, Facebook, Instagram — be present everywhere!Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, who’s become a household name by now, proved that this is simply not true....

Digital Minimalism

A thorough step-by-step guide covering everything you need to know about digital decluttering, and how to easily apply it in your life.

How to declutter your digital space – Clockify Blog

The block scheduling system is where you organize your day into activity blocks for broad goals (errands, chores, ideation) and specific tasks (answering emails, writing a one-off memo). Block scheduling also offers the flexibility to swap blocks or rearrange them if tasks were completed sooner than allocated. Block scheduling promotes focused work, like programming, studying, or researching, while setting less important tasks aside for later.

The block scheduling system

Consider if you can work in "day themes" that are broad in scope and require initiative and advance planning. Do you work better with detailed directives and play-by-play planning? Do you work better in the morning or the afternoon? There are many block-scheduling methods. The most common are:<ul><li>time blocking</li><li>task batching</li><li>day theming</li><li>time boxing</li></ul>

The basics of the block scheduling method

Day theming is a less-focused approach to block scheduling, in which you dedicate a single day to one project or task. This is best used if you're juggling multiple projects or part-time jobs. Consider each day as a self-contained workflow. For example,<ul><li> set every Monday aside for newsletter writing, promotion, and administrative work, </li><li>dedicate every Wednesday to podcast production, editing, and interviewing,</li><li>Create hands-off days, or“untouchable days” where the time is dedicated to yourself.</li></ul>

Time Blocking

Task batching is helpful for tackling regular tasks. Task batching is less specific and offers a time frame in which to handle specific tasks, such as an hour to answer emails, or half an hour to pay your bills or research the best vacation spot.

Task Batching

Time blocking and time boxing requires planning a specific goal, task, or deliverable around a single slot. For example, choosing to write for four hours each morning or setting aside two hours to complete a presentation. If you have a 90-minute block for "second language study" but find it difficult to get started, you could break the larger block into smaller boxes: 40 minutes of audio listening and reading, 20 minutes of reading, and 30 minutes of workbook assignments.

Blocking or Boxing

Set aside time to look ahead. Take an hour at the end of each week to plan ahead. Ensure to leave large blocks for reading and overflow from tasks that were interrupted by daycare issues or unexpected edits/fact-checks. When you schedule with time blocks, intentionally schedule your work, but don't be too rigid. If you finish a task ahead of time, relocate another block so that you don't get engaged with busy work to fill the time.

Plan Ahead, but Be Flexible

This simple productivity system helps organize the chaos of work and life—and it uses tools you probably already have.

How to Use Block Scheduling to Revamp Your Workflow

Increasing your productivity is easy. It’s just a matter of making a few simple changes to your routine, or behaviour, or thinking, and your productivity will soar.
At least, that’s what countless online articles claim. The actual science tells a different story. Even a modest amount of research reveals that some of the most commonly touted claims about how to boost productivity fall apart in the face of the evidence.

The Advice On The Internet About Increasing Productivity

It's regularly claimed that you'll be more productive if you get up early - very early. However, there are many reasons why waking up early could be actively unproductive.
Sleep is crucial for our ability to function, and depriving yourself of it does more harm than good.

Myth 1: Waking up at 4 am will make you more productive

<ul><li>The most successful people experience 24-hour days just like anyone else.</li><li>However, the ability to use those hours productively differs tremendously from person to person.</li><li>Context is everything.</li><li>It's far easier to use time productively when you have the money and resources.</li><li>Few people have the option to use that time 100-percent productively.</li></ul>

Myth 2: We All Have The Same 24 Hours A Day

<ul><li>The idea that constantly being busy is the only way to be truly productive is the default assumption for many people</li><li>In truth, it has long been known that multitasking or 'task switching' actually erodes your productivity</li><li>The human brain has limited resources when it comes to attention and working memory - our abilities to focus on and think about things</li><li>Overworking yourself will compromise your ability to do simple tasks effectively</li></ul>

Myth 3: Keeping Busy Means Being More Productive

<ul><li>According to many people, productivity is linked to happiness - the happier you are, the more productive you will be.</li><li>However, scientific studies reveal that happy workers are only 12% more productive.</li><li>Persuading people to be happy often backfires: If people believe they must be happy, it is harder for them to achieve their goals.</li></ul>

Myth 4: You Should Be Happy in Your Work

<ul><li>As much as we might want to believe otherwise, when countless people are working equally hard for the same goals, the most important factor is actually going to be... plain old luck!</li><li>You can't tell people to 'be lucky' in the same way you can cajole them to work hard.</li><li>Our brains are sensitive to the balance between effort and reward.</li><li>When the effort we put in is not rewarded as expected, it causes stress and negative emotions.</li></ul>

Myth 5: Hard Work Always Pays Off

How much truth is behind the productivity myths touted by influencers, and do we all need to be setting our alarms for 4am?

career

Career

A neuroscientist debunks the biggest productivity myths | BBC Science Focus Magazine

Goal Gradient Effect: The closer users are to achieving a goal the more they strive to complete it and they faster they work at the goal.

Goal Gradient Effect

You can utilize this psychological effect by gamifying the experience, have a set goal that you want your users to accomplish and they show them how close they are to getting the goal.

How to Utilize it

A human psychological effect and how to utilize it in our designs or in any day life

The tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal.

Goal-Gradient Effect | Laws of UX

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time.

<a href="https://www.canva.com/planners/">Creating and sticking to a schedule</a>—both in your personal and professional life—is the best way to manage your time and ensure you fit everything you need (and want!) to do into your daily life. But schedules can be challenging, especially if time management isn’t one of your strong suits.And to add to the confusion, what is an effective schedule anyway?

How to create an effective schedule

Your daily schedule is like your blueprint for the day. It keeps you on track and helps you make the most out of your time.Not only that, but schedules allow you to identify where the “time sucks” are. Think of these as areas that are draining your time, and you need to get rid of (we’re looking at you, mindless social media scrolling).If you want to be efficient on anything?Managing your time is the key to finishing everything and hitting the target 100%.Manage your Schedule, or your Unorganized Self will Manage you!

The Importance of a Daily Schedule

1. Perform a Time InventoryYou can use Digital Planners available in the Market to Track Down what are you doing every day, block a specific amount of time on these activities. If you are not a techie, you can use the good old-fashioned Planners.2. List your daily/weekly/monthly prioritiesThis is going on the Macro Level of Things, instead of counting minutes and hours, you must look at your schedule from a birds-eye view too.3. Invest in a Daily Planner If Planners are too expensive for you, you can create your own using <a href="https://www.canva.com/planners/">templates from Canva.</a>

How to make an effective daily schedule

Planners help hold you accountable; if you have written reminders of where you’re supposed to be and what you’re supposed to be doing, it’s more challenging to ignore.Planners are also helpful because they help keep you organized. Instead of having your schedule spread out over multiple devices, calendars, and post-it notes spread across your office, a planner organizes all your daily to-do’s in one, easy-to-manage place.

Why invest in a Planner?

Clearly, if you want to build an effective daily schedule, you need a planner. But what, exactly, do you need to include in that planner?Here’s an outline of the five must-have’s to include on each task in your daily planner schedule:<ul><li>Time</li><li>Commitment</li><li>Other people involved</li><li>Contact information</li><li>Notes/Any other relevant details for the commitment</li></ul>

Planner Outline to keep you Organized

Is there a way to keep on top of your to-do list? Color coding can be used to distinguish between distinct commitments. Work commitments, for example, could be highlighted in pink, family commitments in yellow, and personal commitments in blue. That way, you'll be able to see right away what kinds of things are on your to-do list for the day—and plan accordingly.Folding over each page when you're done with it is another technique to keep your planner orderly.

How do you keep your planner organized?

<ul><li>If sticking to a schedule on your own is difficult, ask the support of a friend, coworker, or family member to hold you accountable. </li><li>Pull out your planner at the end of each day and take a brief check of your schedule to see how well you stayed to it. If you struggle, think about how you can improve the next day.</li><li>Add your daily schedule to your phone and set alarms to remind you where you need to be and whenIf you have difficulties remembering to check your planner, add it to your phone and set alarms to remind you where you need to be and when.</li></ul>

How to stay in line with your Planner?

We look at how making a schedule could help us stay productive and efficient every day. Hint: It's easier than you think. 

When employees are on the clock, most managers expect them to keep busy throughout the workday. This may mean either completing tasks within their remits or finding ways to make sure their hands are in some work-related project. Even when workflows deliver some downtime, the message from management is generally clear: find a way to keep working.  Managers step in with ‘busywork’ to keep their employees occupied. Busywork is something that doesn't have a purpose. It doesn't lead towards reaching any goals, it doesn't improve the person, the operation or the culture.

The Management And Downtime: Keeping Workers Busy For No Reason

The Busywork might include compiling a pointless report, colour-coding a spreadsheet or proofreading a presentation that has already been checked. One 2016 study of 600 knowledge workers showed they spent just <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/new-study-your-employees-are-probably-spending-less-and-less-time-doing-their-ac.html">39% of their workdays</a> doing their actual jobs, with the rest dedicated to meetings, emails and busywork such as writing status reports for managers.

Busywork

Part of the busywork problem is some managers equate busyness with productivity. The perception is not just that a busy worker is engaged and making an effort, but even that their industriousness gives them a higher moral value than their less busy colleagues. This sets up a dynamic in which two office workers completing identical tasks can be judged on their busyness, rather than their results. Who appears to be more engaged: the busy worker who skips lunch to get things finished, or the efficient worker who finishes early and uses the time saved to buy groceries online?

Controlling The Worker Bees

The Busywork problem is heightened in organisations where work culture dictates that managers operate in a more traditional, authoritative style, discouraging autonomy among employees. In these organisations, managers may also feel under pressure from their own superiors to prove that their team is busy and productive. Managers are saying, ‘I need my employees to keep generating work so that I know they’re earning their salary, because somebody is watching me to make sure that I'm managing them well'.

The Problem With Old School Organizations 

Remote work has, in some cases, exacerbated this pressure. When employees first switched to remote work, many managers found the inability to visually monitor their employees unsettling. In the immediacy of Covid, bosses felt that if they couldn’t see employees working, then they weren’t working. They didn’t think employees were being productive, even if they were still delivering results.A 2020 study showed that 41% of managers questioned their employees’ motivation, and almost a third doubted that their employees had the right knowledge or essential skills to make remote work successful.

Remote Work And The Eroding Of Trust

When higher-ups doubt employees’ work ethic, one solution is to micromanage their time with an endless list of tasks to keep them chained to their desks – even if some of those tasks are pointless. Managers may not even know if an employee has finished their core work, but they are giving additional busywork to ensure that they don't finish for the day. This is to ensure that employees are working, so the manager has a sense that they are still in control.

Giving Work To Maintain Control

It is not just managers who equate industriousness with good performance, however. One study showed knowledge workers spend an average of 41% of their time at work on self-assigned busywork that could be delegated to others, in order to appear busier and more important at work.Online, the pressure to look busy remains, even if that means adding extra tasks to the workday, like sending messages to prove we are logged on. And even though many workers are able to complete their work in less time in remote-work environments, many still feel the pressure to assign themselves busywork.

Employees Know They Have To Look Busy

Some managers report lulls in work during remote set-ups have made employees uneasy. These managers start to assign busywork just to ensure that workers don't feel a void, and remain occupied.But assigning too much busywork to mitigate guilt might mean swapping one set of negative feelings for another. A 2018 study showed 42% of workers were spending half of their time on busywork, and 71% said that doing too much busywork made them feel as though their lives were being wasted.

Managing The Lull

In the long-term, frequently assigning tasks designed primarily to keep workers occupied can damage the relationship between managers and their workers. It can be very demotivating to the remote employee. It's a sign of lack of trust and lack of care. The real tragedy of busywork is in the opportunity that is lost. There’s so much that could be done within that time that would be beneficial to both the employee and the firm.

Wasting Countless Hours

Some alternatives for busywork: Assigning the worker meaningful tasks or opportunities for growth that often gets put on the back burner, such as training. A great way is to let employees take a breather. Numerous studies have proven the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2165079916653416">benefits of taking regular breaks</a> during the workday. Among them are reduced stress and <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110208131529.htm">improved focus</a>, creativity and productivity – all positives for employees and their organisations.

Taking A Break Is Good

When remote workers are putting in increasingly long hours, piling on endless busywork will have the opposite effect. The primary risk is that employees burn out and their mental wellness is impacted. This Great Resignation is the result, in part, of exhausted people who are not managed effectively in their remote work because it wasn't flexible enough.

Busywork Leads To Burnout

Apart from giving meaningful work, another approach is to give teams autonomy, which is motivating and creates a virtuous cycle, where people want to do a good job.Managers need to think harder about the kind of tasks they are handing out. The idea is to keep employees busy during work hours, but avoid busywork. Instead, they should plan for slow periods, and look for tasks they can give that will add value.

Breaking The Cycle

Ultimately, managers who feel caught in a cycle of assigning busywork should take a step back and think more broadly about what their managers want from them – rather than scrambling to keep people busy. They're probably looking for you to generate good results and, hopefully, retain people who are happy working for you.If the flexible schedules now in demand swap work hours for outcomes, they could take busywork with them, and leave healthier, happier workers in their wake.

The Bottom Line

Stop giving superficial and useless work to employees just to keep them busy.

Many managers fill up employees’ plates with inane tasks, just to keep them working. Why are higher-ups so afraid of downtime?

The managerial obsession with 'busywork'

Find 100+ Tips for Time Management - Curated from inspiring sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!