Your Work Hours in the Productivity Stack

The hours you work can change your productivity. I am not talking about the number of hours, but when you choose to use the hours.

It is one of those things that are just blatantly obvious in theory, but but once you experience it, it really does turn the concept into reality.

After a nice long Christmas holiday, I agreed with my wife that I would adjust my working hours, instead of working the standard hours at my company 8:30 – 5:30, I would work 7-4, to take advantage of the summer daylight so as to enjoy more family time. Little did I know that it would improve my productivity. ( Thankfully this is not a thesis, because I cannot substantiate that claim with documented facts )

The thing I noticed immediately, which made me aware that this increased my productivity, not just meeting my emotional needs for better family time - which probably has palpable productivity increase of it own, is that when it comes to the close of the day, I am not tired.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love to work hard, and work hard until the last minute, but once I pack up to go home, I am tried, not because I am bored, simply because after that many hours of  concentrated work you get drained – or so I thought.

Now I am not.

It does not take a controlled study to imply the productivity improvements for my company of having a full day of work, without feeling the mental exhaustion towards the end of the day ( and the knock on affects of fixing the errors the next day ).

If your company gives you the freedom, I suggest you experiment with your hours, and find the 8-9 hours that you can give that do not leave you tired at the end of the day.

I am lucky that my 8-9 hours fall in such a way that I have also improved my family life, I wish you the same.