Why work doesnt happen at work Jason Fried
[Music]
[Applause]
so I’m going to talk about work
specifically why people can’t seem to
get work done at work which is a problem
we all kind of have but let’s sort of
start at the beginning so we have
companies and nonprofits and charities
and all these groups that have employees
or volunteers of some sort and they
expect these people who work for them to
do great work
I would hope at least at least good work
let’s hopefully at least it’s good work
hopefully great work and so what they
typically do is they decide that all
these people need to come together in
one place to do that work so a company
or a charity or organization of any kind
they typically unless you’re working in
Africa if you’re really lucky to do that
most people have to go to an office
every day and so these companies they
build offices they go out and they buy a
building or they rent a building or they
leave some space and they fill this
space with stuff they fill it with
tables or desks chairs computer
equipment software internet access maybe
a fridge maybe a few other things and
they expect their employees or their
volunteers to come to that location
every day to do great work it seems like
it’s perfectly reasonable to ask that
however if you actually talk to people
and even question yourself and you ask
yourself where do you really want to go
when you really need to get something
done you’ll find out that people don’t
say what businesses think they would say
if you ask people the question where do
you really need to go when you need to
get something done you typically get
three different kinds of answers one is
kind of a place or location or room
another one is a a moving object and a
third is a time so here’s some examples
when I ask people I’ve been asking
people this question for about ten years
I ask them where do you go when you
really need to get something done I’ll
hear things like the porch the deck the
kitchen I’ll hear things like an extra
room in the house the basement the
coffee shop
the library and then you’ll hear things
like the Train
a plane a car so the commute and then
you’ll hear people say well it doesn’t
really matter where I am as long as it’s
really early in the morning or really
late at night or on the weekends you
almost never hear someone say the office
but businesses are spending all this
money on this place called the office
and they’re making people go to it all
the time yet people don’t do work in the
office what is that about
like why is that why is that happening
and what you find out is if you dig a
little bit deeper you find out that
people this is what happens people go to
work and they’re basically trading in
their work day for a series of work
moments that’s what happens at the
office you don’t have a work day anymore
you have work moments it’s like the
front door of the office is like a
Cuisinart and you walk in and your day
is shredded to bits because you have 15
minutes here and 30 minutes there and
then something else happens and you’re
pulled off your work and you got to do
something else and you have 20 minutes
then it’s lunch then you have something
else to do and then you have 15 minutes
and someone pulls you aside and ask you
this question and before you know what
it’s like it’s 5:00 p.m. right and you
look back on your day and you realize
that you didn’t get anything done right
I mean we’ve all been through this you
probably been through it we’re probably
went through it yesterday or the day
before the day before that you look back
on your day and you’re like I got
nothing done today I was at work I sat
at my desk I used my expensive computer
I used the software they told me to use
I went to these meetings I was asked to
go to I did these conference calls I did
all this stuff but I didn’t actually do
anything I just did tax I didn’t
actually get meaningful work done and
what you what you find is that
especially with creative people
designers programmers writers engineers
thinkers that people really need long
stretches of uninterrupted time to get
something done and you cannot ask
somebody to be creative in 15 minutes
and really think about a problem you
might have a quick idea but to be in
deep thought about a problem and really
consider a problem carefully you need
long stretches of uninterrupted time and
even though the workday is typically
eight hours how many people here have
ever had eight hours to themselves at
the office about seven hours six
five four when’s the last time you had
three hours to yourself at the office
two hours one maybe very very few people
actually have long stretches of under up
to time at an office and this is why
people choose to do work at home or they
might go to the office but they might go
to the office really early in the day or
late at night when no one’s around or
they stick around whenever after
everyone’s left or they go in on the
weekends or they get worked out on the
plane or they get work done in the car
or on the train because there are no
distractions now there are different
kinds of distractions but there aren’t
the really bad kind of distractions
which I’ll talk about in just a minute
and this sort of whole phenomenon of
having like short bursts of time to get
things done reminds me of another thing
that doesn’t work when you’re
interrupted and that is sleep I think
that sleep and work are very closely
related and it’s not just that you can
work while you’re sleeping and you can
sleep while you’re working that’s not
really what I mean I’m talking
specifically about the fact that sleep
and work are phase based or stage based
events so sleep is about sleep phases or
stages some people call them different
things there’s five of them and in order
to get to the really deep ones they’re
really meaningful ones you have to go
through the early ones and if you’re
interrupted while you’re going through
the early ones so if you know someone
bumps you in bed or there’s a sound or
whatever happens you don’t just pick up
where you left off if you’re interrupted
and woken up you have to start again so
you have to go back a few phases and
start again and what ends up happening
sometimes you might have days like this
where you wake up at 8:00 in the morning
or 7:00 in the morning or whenever you
get up and you’re like I didn’t really
sleep very well I did the sleep thing I
went to bed I laid down but I didn’t
really sleep because sleep is not people
say you go to sleep but you really don’t
go to sleep you go towards sleep it just
takes a while you got to go through
these phases and stuff and if you’re
interrupted you don’t sleep well so how
do we expect that does anyone here
expect someone to sleep well if they’re
interrupted all night I don’t think
anyone would say yes why do we expect
people to work well if they’re being
interrupted all day at the office how
can we possibly expect people to do
their job if they’re going to the office
to be interrupted that doesn’t really
seem like it makes a lot of sense to me
what are these interruptions that happen
at the office that don’t happen in other
places because in other places you can
have interruptions like you can have you
know the TV or you know you could go for
a walk or there’s a fridge downstairs or
you’ve got your own couch or whatever
you want to do and if you talk to
certain managers they’ll tell you that
they don’t want their employees to work
at home because of these distractions
you know they’ll also say that sometimes
they’ll also say well if I can’t see the
person how do I know they’re working
which is ridiculous of course but that’s
one of the excuses that managers give
and I’m one of these managers I
understand like I I know how this goes
we all have to improve on this sort of
thing but often times they’ll cite
distractions I can’t let someone work at
home to watch TV they’ll do this other
thing it turns out that those aren’t the
things that are really distracting
because those are voluntary distractions
you decide when you want to be
distracted by the TV you decide when you
want to turn something on you decide
when you want to go downstairs or go for
a walk at the office most of the
interruptions and distractions that
really cause people not to get work done
are involuntary so let’s go through a
couple of those now
managers and bosses will often have you
think that the real distractions at work
are things like Facebook and Twitter and
YouTube and other websites and in fact
they’ll go so far as to actually ban
these sites at work some of you may work
at places where you can’t get to these
certain sites I mean is this China what
the hell is going on here you can’t go
to a website at work and that’s the
problem that’s why people aren’t getting
work done because they’re going to
Facebook and they’re going to Twitter
that’s kind of ridiculous it’s a total
decoy and you know today’s Facebook and
Twitter and YouTube these things are
just modern-day smoke breaks no one
cared about letting people take a smoke
break for 15 minutes 10 years ago so why
is everyone care about someone going to
Facebook here and their Twitter here and
their YouTube here and there those
aren’t the real problems in the office
the real problems are what I like to
call the MMS the managers and the
meetings those are the real problems in
the modern office today and this is why
things don’t get done at work it’s
because of the MMS now what’s
interesting is if you listen to all the
places that people talk about doing work
like at home or
in the car or a plane or late at night
or early in the morning you don’t find
managers and meetings you find a lot of
other distractions but you don’t find
managers in meetings so these are the
things that you don’t find elsewhere but
you do find at the office and managers
are basically people whose job it is is
to interrupt people that’s pretty much
what managers are for they’re for
interrupting people they don’t really do
the work so they have to make sure
everyone else is doing the work which is
an interruption and and we have a lot of
managers in the world now and there’s a
lot of people in the world now and
there’s a lot of interruptions in the
world now because of these managers they
have to check-in hey how’s it going so
me what’s up you know this is the sort
of thing and they keep interrupting you
at the wrong time while you’re trying to
actually do something that they’re
paying you to do they tend to interrupt
you that’s kind of bad but what’s even
worse is the thing that managers do most
of all which is call meetings and
meetings are just toxic terrible
poisonous things during the day at work
we all know this to be true and you
would never see a spontaneous meeting
called by employees it doesn’t work that
way it’s like the manager calls the
meeting so the employees can all come
together and it’s an incredibly
disruptive thing to do to people is to
say hey look we’re gonna bring ten
people together right now and have a
meeting I don’t care what you’re doing
just you’ve got to stop doing what
you’re doing so you can have this
meeting I mean what are the chances that
all ten people are ready to stop what if
they’re thinking about something
important or if they’re doing important
work all of a sudden you’re telling them
they have to stop doing that to do
something else so they go into a meeting
room they get together and they talk
about stuff that doesn’t really matter
usually because meetings aren’t work
meetings there are places to go talk
about things you’re supposed to be doing
later
but meetings also procreate so one
meeting tends to lead to another meeting
intends to lead to another meeting
there’s often too many people in the
meetings and they’re very very expensive
to the organization companies often
think of a one-hour meeting as a
one-hour meeting but that’s not true
unless there’s only one person in that
meeting there are 10 people in the
meeting it’s a 10 hour meeting it’s not
a one-hour meeting it’s 10 hours of
productivity taken from the rusty
organization to have this one one-hour
meeting which probably should have been
handled by two or three people talking
for a few minutes but instead there’s a
long-scheduled meeting because meetings
are scheduled the way software works
which is in like increments of 15
minutes or 30 minutes or an hour you
don’t schedule an eight-hour meeting
with Outlook you can’t I don’t know if
you can you go 15 minutes or 30 minutes
or 45 minutes or an hour and so we tend
to fill these times up when things
should really go really quickly so
meetings and managers are two major
problems in businesses today especially
to offices these things don’t exist
outside of the office so I have some
suggestions to kind of remedy the
situation
what can managers do enlightened
managers hopefully what can they do to
make the office a better place for
people to work so it’s not the last
resort but it’s the first resort it’s
that people start to say when I really
want to get stuff done I go to the
office because the offices are well
equipped everything should be there for
them to do their work but they don’t
want to go there right now so how do we
change that I have three suggestions
I’ll share with you guys about three
minutes so that that will fit perfectly
we’ve all heard of like you know the the
the casual Friday thing I don’t know if
people still do that but how about no
talk Thursdays how about pick one third
just one Thursday once a month and cut
that day in half and just say the
afternoon I’ll make it really easy for
you so just the afternoon one Thursday
the first Thursday of the month just the
afternoon nobody in the office can talk
to each other just silence that’s it and
what you’ll find is that a tremendous
amount of work actually gets done when
no one talks to each other this is when
people actually get stuff done is when
no one’s bothering them when no one’s
interrupting them and you can give
someone like giving someone four hours
of uninterrupted time is the best gift
you can give anybody at work it’s better
than a computer it’s better than a new
monitor it’s better than a new software
or whatever people typically use give
you them four hours of quiet time at the
office is going to be incredibly
valuable and if you try that I think
you’ll find that you agree and maybe
hopefully you can do it more often so
maybe it’s every other week or every
week once a week afternoons don’t can
talk to each other that’s something that
you’ll find will really really work
another thing you can try is switching
from active communication and
collaboration which is like face-to-face
stuff tapping people on the shoulder
saying hi to them having
meetings and replace that with more
passive models of communication using
things like email and instant messaging
or collaboration products things like
that now some people might say email is
really distracting and I am is really
distracting and these other things are
really distracting but they’re
distracting at a time of your own choice
in your own choosing you can quit the
email app you can’t quit your boss you
can quit
I am you can’t hide your manager right
you can put these things away and then
you can be interrupted on your own
schedule at your own time when you’re
available when you’re ready to go again
because work like sleep happens in
phases so you’re going to be kind of
going up and doing some work and you’re
going to come down from that work and
then maybe it’s time to check that email
check that I am and there are very very
few things that are that urgent that
need to happen and need to be answered
right this second so if you’re a manager
start encouraging people to use more
things like I am an email and other
things that someone else can put away
and then get back to you on their own
schedule and the last suggestion I have
is that if you do have a meeting coming
up if you are if you have the power just
cancel it just cancel that next meeting
what it tastes Friday so Monday usually
people have meetings on Monday just
don’t have it now I don’t mean like move
it I mean just erase it from memory it’s
gone and you’ll find out that everything
will be just fine like all these
discussions and decisions you thought
you had to make at this one time at 9:00
a.m. on Monday just forget about them
and things will be just fine people have
a more open morning they can actually
think and you’ll find out that maybe all
these things you thought you had to do
you don’t actually have to do so those
are just three quick suggestions I
wanted to give you guys to think about
this and and I hope that some of these
ideas were at least provocative enough
for managers and bosses and business
owners and organizers and people who are
in charge of other people to think about
laying off a little bit and giving
people some more time to get some work
done and I think it’ll all pay off in
the end so thanks for listening
[Applause]
you