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