As Sir Richard Branson commented in his ode to working remotely: “To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision.”fn3.
If you can’t fit everything you want to do within 40 hours per week, you need to get better at picking what to do, not work longer hours.
What’s worse is when management holds up certain people as having a great “work ethic” because they’re always around, always available, always working. That’s a terrible example of a work ethic and a great example of someone who’s overworked.
The person with the question needed something and they got it. The person with the answer was doing something else and had to stop. That’s rarely a fair trade.
Remember: Deadlines, not dreadlines.
Workaholism is a contagious disease.
That’s because offices have become interruption factories. A busy office is like a food processor – it chops your day into tiny bits. Fifteen minutes here, ten minutes there, twenty here, five there.
Accept that better ideas aren’t necessarily better if they arrive after the train has left the station. If they’re so good, they can catch the next one.
Later is where excuses live. Later is where good intentions go to die. Later is a broken back and a bent spirit. Later says “all-nighters are temporary until we’ve got this figured out.” Unlikely. Make the change now.
The scarcity of such face time in remote working situations makes it seem that much more valuable. And as a result, something interesting happens: people don’t waste the time. An awareness of scarcity makes them use it wisely.
Stress is passed from organization to employee, from employee to employee, and then from employee to customer.
There are two fundamental ways not to be ignored at work. One is to make noise. The other is to make progress, to do exceptional work.
Companies love to declare “We’re all family here.” No, you’re not.
But when you think of the company as a product, you ask different questions: Do people who work here know how to use.
The further away you are from something, the fuzzier it becomes.
The future is a major abstraction, riddled with a million vibrating variables you can’t control. The best information you’ll ever have about a decision is at the moment of execution.
Being comfortable in your zone is essential to being calm.
Whoever managed to rebrand the typical open-plan office – with all its noise, lack of privacy, and resulting interruptions – as something hip and modern deserves a damn medal from the Committee of Irritating Distractions.
The big transition with a distributed workforce is going from synchronous to asynchronous collaboration.
People can’t get work done at work anymore. That turns life into work’s leftovers. The doggie bag. What’s worse is that long hours, excessive busyness, and lack of sleep have become a badge of honor for many people these days. Sustained exhaustion is not a badge of honor, it’s a mark of stupidity.
When calm starts early, calm becomes the habit. But if you start crazy, it’ll define you. You have to keep asking yourself if the way you’re working today is the way you’d want to work in 10, 20, or 30 years. If not, now is the time to make a change, not “later.