{"id":1932,"date":"2013-04-17T01:48:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-17T01:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=486"},"modified":"2013-04-17T01:48:14","modified_gmt":"2013-04-17T01:48:14","slug":"why-the-office-may-not-alwaysbe-the-best-place","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/why-the-office-may-not-alwaysbe-the-best-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Office May not Always be the Best Place to Work"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever had a day at work where you felt, \u201cI really didn\u2019t get anything done today?\u00a0\u00a0 I did <i>things,<\/i> but didn\u2019t accomplish anything.\u201d\u00a0 So has Jason Fried, co-founder and president of 37signals, as Chicago based company for web-based productivity tools.\u00a0 \u201cI was at work, I sat at my desk, and I used my expensive computer.\u00a0 I used the software they told me to use.\u00a0 I went to these meetings I was asked to go to.\u00a0 I did these conference calls.\u00a0 I did all this stuff, but I didn\u2019t actually do anything. I just did tasks; I didn\u2019t actually get any meaningful work done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Fried attributes this to distractions and interruptions in the workplace.\u00a0 He compares work to sleep, in the sense that you can\u2019t sleep very well if you are constantly interrupted every 30 minutes.\u00a0 Work is the same way.\u00a0 If you are distracted by other employees, meetings, phone calls, or various other interruptions, it can be difficult to concentrate.\u00a0 For creativity to blossom, it takes most people several hours of uninterrupted focus.\u00a0 And although the typical work day is 8 hours, can you think of the last time you were able to work at the office for 8 hours without interruption? How about 6 hours?\u00a0 4?\u00a0 Maybe 2 if you are lucky?\u00a0 This is why so many choose to come in early in the morning, stay after hours, or even come in on weekends to actually get work done.<\/p>\n<p>Distractions are a broad topic though.\u00a0 Most managers feel things like Twitter or Facebook are the problem, but Fried says they really aren\u2019t.\u00a0 The real problem he says, are too many meetings that last too long.\u00a0 An hour long meeting with 10 people doesn\u2019t waste 1 hour, it wastes 10 hours of productivity, because each of those people could be working.\u00a0 In many cases, he suggests that these meetings could have been handled by 2 or 3 people in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u2019t stress just yet.\u00a0 He offers some solutions to help with these distractions, and make the office a better place to work for your employees.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>No Talk Thursdays \u2013 Take one day a month (doesn\u2019t have to be a Thursday) and order complete silence around the office.\u00a0 No one is allowed to speak to anyone else, so that everyone can focus on their work.\u00a0 \u201c4 hours of uninterrupted time is the best gift you can give someone at work.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Use Passive Communication \u2013 Use communication methods like Email or Instant Messaging as opposed to in person communication.\u00a0 Although some may still see these as distracting, they are distracting at your own choosing. You can close Outlook and focus on your work.\u00a0 You can logout of your IM client.\u00a0 You can\u2019t do that to someone standing in front of you.<\/li>\n<li>Thin Out Your Meetings \u2013 All those meetings you felt you had to have, rethink them.\u00a0 Take a serious look and determine whether they are absolutely necessary.\u00a0 You will most likely find that many of them aren\u2019t.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever had a day at work where you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[421,422,392],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}