Toyota calls it “lowering the water level.”
Imagine a value stream or a production process as a river. Reducing the inventory in the process – “lowering the water level” – exposes the “rocks” that represent all of the hidden costs and waste in production. Only by revealing those rocks can you improve the process and reduce the waste.
This metaphor works for knowledge workers, too. In this case, however, their key inventory item is time. Having too much time to do one’s work hides the waste and inefficiencies in the process.
Now, most people would deny they have too much time to do their work. Not too many people are taking three-martini lunches anymore, or leaving the office right at 5:00pm. Hell, on average Americans only take about 79% of their vacation time, and 20% of people work on their vacations. And with our cellphone- and Crackberry-addled days, nights, and weekends, it seems as though there’s an infinite torrent of work. Ironically, these same vacation-skipping, Blackberry-beholden employees complain vociferously about a lack of time for their personal lives.
But here’s the thing: your cellphone, Blackberry, and general willingness to work late and on weekends are part of the problem, not the solution. Counterintuitive, but true.
Yeah, yeah. I can hear you now: “If I didn’t have my Blackberry, if I didn’t put in a few hours on the weekend, I’d never get on top of everything I need to do. I’d be buried. I’d get fired. I’d end up on the street with two Dixie cups and a string instead of an iPhone.”
Let me ask you this (in the words of Dr. Phil): How’s that working for you so far?
Has it helped? Are you on top of your work? Do you spend enough time with your friends and family? How’s your fitness level?
The fact is, if you had less time for your work, you’d get it done more quickly. Parkinson’s Law – work expands to fill the time available for its completion – recognizes this painful aspect of human nature. And if you don’t believe it applies to you, think about what I call the Vacation Paradox: even though you never seem to be able to get all your work done on a regular day, the day(s) right before you go on vacation, you somehow manage to crank through all your daily work plus the backlog of stuff that’s been moldering on your desk for the past month.
What’s going on? Well, when you’re short on time, you work more efficiently. You reduce the waste in your work process so that you can get stuff done. There’s no choice, because you’re on the plane to Maui or St. Moritz tomorrow.
But (to go back to the analogy I started with) when the water level – your inventory of time – is high, there’s less urgency to reduce inefficiency. Why bother removing the waste in your work habits when you can just stay at the office an hour later, or get it done over the weekend? This is just another manifestation of the normalcy of waste.
And that’s the nefarious aspect of living on your Blackberry 24/7, and your willingness to work on weekends and give up your holidays: you effectively raise the water level by increasing the amount of time you have to accomplish your work.
Lower your inventory of time available for work, and then you can reveal and address the inefficiencies in your work habits. In the spirit of kaizen, commit to leaving the office 15 minutes earlier one day this week. Then make it two days next week, and three days the week after. Carve out time for the non-work activities that you regret missing. Schedule time with your family; go for a run; read a book. Fill your calendar with these important commitments, decrease your inventory of work time, and you’ll find ways to become more efficient.
Not only will you expose the rocks, you just might enjoy the trip down the river.
I do all the things that you mentioned, it’s amazing the amount of time I could save, if I work as efficiently on a normal day as on a day than the day before a vacation. Now my task is to stick to your rules :-)
thnx
Hello,
While I would agree with you overall, I think the problem is with the rocks. Do you have control over them once they surface? If you do, the crux of the matter is finding the time and will to change them. If you can’t control them, as in the case of organizational processes, intractable co workers or clients, environmental constraints or personal factors, then what? You can try to bypass the rocks, or look at other alternatives, but the point is, it’s not really about time and focus anymore, it’s about your two jobs, the one on the surface and the one that’s been covered up. You are still on the mark though, the first step has to be getting a look at the rocks.
Brant Serxner, PMP
The advent of desktop publishing and the Internet also helped to exarcebate this problem. It used to be that when something was published, it had to be virtually ready to go while still in manuscript form before it could be actually printed, and then only as a proof to be edited one more time. Nowadays indecision, mind-changing, and micromanagement of the process are the norm.
Among people who are not self-employed, I don’t know anyone who is truly “willing” to essentially give their personal time to their employer for free by working late and on weekends and being available 24/7 via portable communications. To be willing would imply that I have a choice in this in today’s market, that most employer’s don’t expect these things of their employees as a condition of advancement and continued employment. It is not that I or most people I know will stretch the work to the time; it is that we will be given more and more work to fill more and more time expected of us. Just try telling your boss that you won’t accept the company-provided cell phone or blackberry, that you won’t answer calls from work after you’ve gone home or on the weekend, that as a principle you don’t do overtime as a matter of course. In my last job, I and 90% of my colleagues worked 50-60 hour weeks as a rule not because most of us were so inefficient but because our employer wanted to keep the payroll down. Hey, project x is just one more thing on the pile, right? I left that job for one with more pay, but I can’t say the conditions are any different– that is just life in business these days.
Madeline,
No argument: employers have increasingly high expectations of employees these days, and the demands of the current business environment do necessitate longer hours.
But. . . people *are* giving up vacation time voluntarily (i.e., not taking their allotted 2 weeks). Employers can’t force workers to give that up. And people do work on Sundays, even though employers can’t mandate that either.
The fact is that if you spent 24 hours everyday in the office, you *still* wouldn’t get everything done. There’s always more work to do. So where you draw the line — at 15 hours, or 12 hours, or 10 hours — is in a sense immaterial. You won’t get everything done.
I’m suggesting that since you won’t/can’t get everything done, you might as well make the time a bit shorter. This will cause some of the inefficiencies (in your own work habits or in the system) to surface so that they can be addressed and fixed.
In my last job, I and 90% of my colleagues worked 50-60 hour weeks as a rule not because most of us were so inefficient but because our employer wanted to keep the payroll down. Hey, project x is just one more thing on the pile, right?
Hi there,
I agree that finding ways to be more efficient can certainly free up some time, but that’s usually advantageous only in salaried positions. I worked PT for a staffing company that figured out ways to squeeze its employees for EACH AND EVERY minute that he/she works. All that while, the management sat in their distant offices, barely working (because much of their work had been passed onto the workers – efficiently, ofcourse). At the end of the day, I’d go home EXHAUSTED because each and every minute of mine was filled with something or another. If I am damaging my peace of mind, health and exhausting my body and soul THAT MUCH (in the name of efficiency), then I better be compensated accordingly. $14/hr for a 5 hour day just does not cut it. That $70/day (less, after taxes) BARELY covers my in-state-tuition for ONE year from a University. Sure, I could add on another PT job that over-works me so I can survive, but that’s not a good solution. Workers are HUMAN BEINGS – with a soul, with potential & talents, with interests outside of earning a living.
In my last job, I and 90% of my colleagues worked 50-60 hour weeks as a rule not because most of us were so inefficient but because our employer wanted to keep the payroll down.
I agree that finding ways to be more efficient can certainly free up some time, but that’s usually advantageous only in salaried positions. I worked PT for a staffing company that figured out ways to squeeze its employees for EACH AND EVERY minute that he/she works. All that while, the management sat in their distant offices, barely working (because much of their work had been passed onto the workers – efficiently, ofcourse). At the end of the day, I’d go home EXHAUSTED because each and every minute of mine was filled with something or another. If I am damaging my peace of mind, health and exhausting my body and soul THAT MUCH (in the name of efficiency), then I better be compensated accordingly. $14/hr for a 5 hour day just does not cut it. That $70/day (less, after taxes) BARELY covers my in-state-tuition for ONE year from a University. Sure, I could add on another PT job that over-works me so I can survive, but that’s not a good solution. Workers are HUMAN BEINGS – with a soul, with potential & talents, with interests outside of earning a living.