I’ve been reflecting on the comms2point0 email I received from Darren today entitled “less work more thinking” where he says it’s been nice to have downtime to plot and plan but “it doesn’t pay the bills”. For the first time ever Darren, I have to disagree.
by Holly Bremner
I am currently on maternity leave and the 2am dream feed has certainly given me the space to think and reflect in a way I haven’t allowed myself to do so previously. My 2ams are special to me. It’s true me time with just my daughter, my dog and my thoughts.
I’ve thought about a lot of things, and Darren’s email reminded me of one 2am musing about the space to think while at work and the value it truly brings.
I am someone who fills their life. Historically, I hated to not have every second accounted for. Before my daughter I was always dashing here or there.
This need to be busy was challenged a while back when I started a new role. Like all newbies, I was keen to make an impact and I asked my Director if I should be doing more. I had hit the ground running and the work that needed to be done was underway, which, for the first time in my career led to there being space in my diary. I thought he’d tell me “yes you can do x or join y” but instead I remember him telling me to enjoy the space to think as that’s just as valuable as the doing.
This was a new concept for me, I’d come from a “busy” environment. Pre-Covid it was full, but Covid and post-Covid made that fullness look like a holiday.
Even though I am a huge advocate of working from home and flexible working, remote working has, in my eyes, led to a culture of diary bulging - a day valued by how full your diary is.
But, endless Teams meetings have reduced the available time to do the actual doing and eroded the space to think.
Multitasking has become the norm for many. I remember being asked by a candidate for my maternity cover whether it was frowned on to do other work while attending meetings. Even though I was surprised they asked this question, the reality is we’ve all done it - responded to an email, cleared our inbox, read a paper for the next meeting, written our task list etc. etc…
Even though I have previously valued having a full schedule, my most hated phrase is “busy, busy, busy”.
Over my career I’ve witnessed that being busy doesn’t necessarily mean being productive. It goes back to that old adage “less is more”.
A paper from the American Psychological Association has identified that switching between tasks and multitasking can reduce productivity by up to 40% and I firmly believe that.
I once read it takes 25 minutes for your brain to recover and get back into a task once you’ve been interrupted by something else, so of course you aren’t going to be performing at your best if you are interrupting yourself by doing six things at once.
Away from productivity, without the thinking time where is the space for new ideas to grow or challenge be rationalised?
Another paper from Santa Clara University has identified that multitasking because of busy schedules leads to poor decision making and planning.
So space in a working day to think and do really is essential for a high performing organisation.
When preparing for maternity leave I had to be ruthless with my time - I could go at any second and there were things that genuinely couldn’t be left, so they were prioritised.
I found myself ruthlessly challenging why I was being invited to meetings and started to ask myself a series of questions before accepting: why am I being invited? Does my involvement add value? Is another team member better placed to be involved? Is this really a Comms issue?
This really helped me and I started to question why I hadn’t done this sooner - I suppose though I hadn’t allowed myself the space to challenge my own working behaviours.
One of my greatest concerns before starting maternity leave was whether having a year out of the working environment would negatively affect me as an employee and a leader. But I’m starting to realise it’s one of the greatest opportunities in my career.
Having a baby has already taught me many things. The biggest though has been the power of slowing down. My goodness my days are packed, and start early, but my daughter needs time to feed and sleep and learn the world and it is my responsibility to give that to her. I’ve therefore become more considered in my approach and appreciative of what I spend my time on and who I spend it with. These are qualities I now enjoy and value and I will be taking these back into the workplace when I return to my role later in the year.
Holly Bremner is a chartered communications professional, currently keeping a small person happy. You can say hello on Twitter at @Holly_HBComms
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