`Time is on our side`- Essay by Chris Brown

Time is on our side!

It might be an appropriate anthem for ageless, millionaire rock stars like the Rolling Stones, but for the most of us, our battle with the constraints of time is probably more a case of `I can’t get no satisfaction`!

We increasingly face pressures of deadlines, mortgage payments, family schedules, overwork and the associated stress. Daily utterances of `where has the year gone`, by co- workers are a constant reminder of our need to better understand and manage our time, for the greater satisfaction of what we do.

I recall reading a Chinese proverb a few years back that went: `Four things come not back- the spoken word, the spent arrow, the time past and the opportunity lost`. Notwithstanding words and arrows as undisputable hindrances, time and the discernment betweeen a huge array of opportunities appear as our greatest modern challenge.

Do we in fact have less time to do the things we need to, or is it a case of too many opportunities, or distractions and not enough prioritization in our lives? Consider the fact that in the 1820`s the average working week in the UK was eighty-four hours compared to forty hours in the 1980`s (ref; `Sleepers Awake`- Technology and the future of work-Barry Jones 1990 Oxford University Press). We are actually working half the hours our forefathers did!

So that’s an extra forty hours a week we have over our 19th Century predecessors, which has opened up enormous opportunities in leisure time. They also went without the prodigious outputs of the timesaving, nanosecond (now made redundant by the picosecond) technology and resultant conveniences of today. We can flash images and messages across the world in one eleventh of a second and have all but done away with the need to attend meetings on the other side of the globe, yet we continue to complain about being `time poor`. Time remains the one inflexible factor that inhibits human capacity.

A simple mathematical equation informs us that with a total week consisting of 168 hours, which has not changed since the 1820`s or the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, we spend roughly 56 hours of the week in slumber and 40 hours for work, leaving a staggering 72 hours for leisure time. Even workaholic executives who shell out 60-hour weeks, would be impressed by this fact.


So time would seem to be on our side compared with our forbearers, but we have also experienced a prodigious growth in the amount and variety of opportunities and choices by which to employ this `surplus` time. We have whole industries in leisure and entertainment that exist to exploit this sector of our time.

I am not sure exactly what they were doing for thrills back in the 1820`s, although one look at the ornate and generous proportions of a Victorian `claw` bath tub suggests a delight in simple pleasures, like staying clean. By comparison, the shrinking dimensions of the modern, suburban bathtub suggest a preference for the `quickie`cleanse. The higher birthrates of yesteryear also suggest a fondness for activities closer to home.

Our tastes have changed and increased in variety, as have the industries that cater to our every whim in this regard. We live in a Western world of popular culture defined distinctly as entertainment. Our heroes are actors, entertainers and sports people. We spend millions watching them and buying the plethora of merchandise that is derived from their images. Michael Schumacher recently hit the billion dollar mark from driving his car very quickly and we encouraged him by watching and paying by the millions.

The French, a most civilized and intrinsically philosophical people, have and interesting word for entertainment- `distraction` which in English means `something that distracts or diverts, amusement`-Oxford Dictionary[2]).

It is precisely these distractions and more specifically, the huge deluge of them that diverts our attention from our deeper sense of priority. I am not for one moment suggesting the abandonment of entertainment as part of our lives. However, putting it forth as a defining mark of modern, Western civilization (as evidenced by the time and money spent engaging in it) is a disappointment for an age that has it all!

The cure would seem to be the opposite of distraction and diversion, principally in the discipline of planning, prioritizing and staying focused, for better quality decision-making. All these precepts have well-established homes in the arena of business and work, however could there be an opportunity to incorporate some of them in our personal lives?

The workplace itself is a minefield of distractions and diversions away from the effective matching of our talents and skills to the objectives of the organization we participate in. A case in point is technology, because of its rapid rate of diffusion, is capable of extrapolating mistakes into mayhem. Left to this end with undisciplined human hands, it can enslave us in a mire of confusion and lack of productivity.

Lets take the real example provided by an associate of mine who is a senior manager in a top 500 international company . On any given day, he receives between 150-200 emails, despite screening by his secretary, who might be otherwise better employed. He spends two hours a day going through them. This is apart from his core responsibilities and he rarely makes it home before 9 PM. I have not studied his job description, but I have yet to see one of a senior manager which stipulates the reading and answering of emails as a key performance indicator. He currently spends ten hours (or an equivalent of one days work) a week on them.

Some companies have devised effective email protocols to ensure that the writer qualifies the need to send them prior to dispatch. The managing director of another friend’s company was so enraged by the evidence of employees emailing each other from a few feet away that he issued a company wide ban on emails after 10 am, so that some work could be done.

Meetings are another seemingly effective business practice until you discover industry research that shows 33.3333% of them are ineffective. In my corporate days I regularly averaged four per day, but I’ll refrain from the analysis of lost time and years. I recall my former managing director complaining to me that he had been made to attend six committee meetings in two weeks on a single issue. After a little investigation I had to diplomatically inform him that he had two committees working on the same project.

The organizations of the future will be transformed into centres of continual learning, where all employees, stakeholders contribute in meaningful ways to its productive processes. The key to this success will be focused, self-managed people who are highly motivated, resourceful and independent. One economic agency goes as far as to suggest that the biggest employer by 2020 will be `self`.

We all want to feel that our efforts are productive and contribute positively to the organisations to which we belong. The point is that there is an opportunity-cost involved, a positive one for being effective and getting it right; and a negative, demoralizing one for getting it wrong. Our time and its value have to be appreciated, not just in the context of company profits but our own sense of a productive life and satisfaction.

Calculating the opportunity cost of our time commitments helps greatly in determining our priorities. Take the example of the person that decides not to drive into work, but take public transport, an hour each way per day. It works out to a total of 456 hours of opportunity time per year, taking into consideration annual leave and public holidays, not to mention the saving on petrol, car maintenance costs and fossil fuel emission-this is reclaimed time to work on projects, perhaps a first novel, language course, stand up comedy routine, you name it!

Looked at from another perspective, the opportunity cost of not taking public transport and driving is the loss of those hours (unless you have a chauffeur), the additional costs to your budget and the damage to the environment.

A simple, logical process can be adopted in the workplace and adapted also to our personal lives.

Firstly we need to discover the four or five key areas of our work (or broader life) existence contained in our job descriptions- call them major responsibilities or KRAs (Key Result Areas for those dazzled by jargon). In a learning centred organization or one committed to continuous improvement, these should somehow align with the key goals of the organization. Surely this makes sense from an operational perspective and we all would like to believe that our efforts, no matter how small, contribute meaningfully to the organization we belong to.

In Australia we even have a national standardized system of seven competencies (Mayer Committee 1992Æ) and a three point grading that can be matched against the key responsibilities of our major tasks. These are broad industry wide competencies, but they do give great guidance in the establishment of job descriptions and the job review process.

The real problem is that these KRAs and competencies are hardly used as a working blueprint of workplace practice. It is rare to find any company that gets its employees to do an audit of their regular week and match it against the requirements of the job description. After prioritization and objective setting, this is the second step and by doing so, two things are possible. Firstly, it tests the accuracy, effectiveness and currency of the job description and secondly it can help an employee identify areas of inefficiency, redundancy or just plain distraction. These can be then managed or processes re engineered.

Whatever savings in time can then be used for better planning of tasks, projects and perhaps even more training. The result would be more productive, less frustrated employees and a more efficient organization.

One problem seems to be that most companies do not have a clearly articulated set of objectives that are understood by all. The closest that comes to it are prosaic mission statements hung on reception room walls. Survey ten people in your workplace and see how many know the company mission statement- go on, I dare you?

I was fortunate to have worked for the McDonalds Corporation, one that excelled in galvanizing the whole organization, from the front counter staff to the board members. In fact, an inverted pyramid represented the organizational chart, with front line store staff at the top (rightly just behind the customer) and the Managing Director at the bottom. Each desk had the key objectives of the organization on it and we were continually motivated to question whether our next action would contribute to these or not.


The next step is to identify those tasks, which occur regularly and to use technology to manage them. After recurring events have been planned for and time wasters eliminated or minimized there is time for personal action plans, and people development, not to mention more strategic projects. I was most delighted to see members of my team receive performance excellence awards at company conventions.

However, not everything can be planned for and contingencies do arise. There is also a great need for quiet time, even in a busy day, to gather our thoughts and give fresh perspectives to conceptualizing and problem solving. We need adequate time to review our day and plan tomorrow. How many of us free ourselves from the intensity of our interactions to have a quiet lunch in a park for contemplation of the bigger picture or just the simple joy of life?

We also need balance in our daily life. Not every area of our life requires the setting of S.M.A.R.T. objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time specific). A goal can be just as effective when stated as an ideal, like `achieving world peace`, for instance. They contribute to that part of our selves that is deeper, idealistic, spiritual. They are of hope, the higher, uniquely human virtue; something we are prepared to journey towards.

In this regard, I had already transformed my life and indeed myself as far as work practices are concerned.I now walk for contemplation, for exercise, for planning and for inspiration. I use public transport to work on plans and I`m studying French on the trains. After careful evaluation I decided on email as my core communications media, as I toggle between numerous projects and international networks. It is however, a lifestyle of self-determination,purpose and increased satisfaction as a result of this process. I have even incorporated some of these practices as rituals to ensure that I don’t slip back into old ways.

The world is changing more rapidly than ever and plans made rigid by a lack of constant review and flexibility are quickly made redundant. There are more opportunities than ever that come our way and we need to have priorities so that we can evaluate these options, quickly dispatching the unnecessary ones.

Our priorities in business, like life can change periodically and hopefully only after careful, contemplative review, but they should never be allowed to do so day-to-day or week-to-week. If they seem to, we are either not clear or committed to them, or we have allowed the lure and seduction of distractions to waver our resolve for a deeper appreciation of a productive life.

Written by Chris Brown 26th April, 2006






[1] Also called `acute stress response` first described by Walter Canon in 1920 in depicting the two options faced by animals when faced with danger.
[2] The Random House dictionary goes further in its 3rd reference to the word `distraction` as a state of `mental distress or derangement`. Is there a link between this state and too much entertainment, one wonders?
Æ The key competencies apply at three broad levels of performance as follows:
Level 1 is concerned with the level of competence needed to undertake tasks effectively
Level 2 with the ability to manage tasks, and
Level 3 with concepts of evaluation and reshaping tasks

The seven key competencies (Mayer Committee 1992) are:

Collecting ideas and information: The capacity to locate, sift and sort information in order to select what is required and to present it in a useful way, and evaluate both the information itself and the sources and methods used to collect it.

Communicating ideas and information: The capacity to communicate effectively with others using the range of spoken, written, graphic and other non-verbal means of expression.
Planning and organising activities: The capacity to plan and organise one’s own work activities, including making good use of time and resources, sorting out priorities and monitoring one’s performance.

Working with others and in teams: The capacity to interact effectively with other people both on a one-to-one basis and in groups, including understanding and responding to the needs of a client and working effectively as a member of a team to achieve a shared goal.

Solving problems: The capacity to apply problem-solving strategies in purposeful ways, both in situations where the problem and the solution are clearly evident and in situations requiring creative thinking and a creative approach to achieve a desired outcome.

Using mathematical ideas and techniques: The capacity to use mathematical ideas, such as number and space, and techniques such as estimation and approximation, for practical purposes.

Using technology: The capacity to apply technology, combining the physical and sensory skills needed to operate equipment with the understanding of scientific and technological principles needed to explore and adapt systems.

Is time on our side ?

Hello, I thought to start off this space with a little presentation i did on time management for a number of audiences. These groups were varied from business types, students and long-term unemployed. I was encouraged by the response from all groups and a greater realisation emerged that time was perhaps the only dimension left that really limited human capability.

I mean, we are now talking nano and even pico second technology, but how come we struggle to get to work or the movies on time, without artery busting stress loads?

What emerged from these sessions was some interesting ideas and notions. It appears that we have never had more disposable time and yet complain about it being lacking- how can this be? Looking back in time, we discover that people in say, the Victorian times, worked on average 82 hours per week and the week was 168 hours long then as it is now!

Or is it a case that we have also never had more `opportunities` as we do now? I think so and I also like to call these choices, because often they are promoted to us as `opportunities`, but really they are just plain choices.

So I came up with the idea that what i needed in order to navigate through these choices in my various quests in life, was a set of priorities or values that would perform the roles of filter and also rudder. What they are is not important, as they vary from person to person, but i noticed that many around me (including myself at one time) were not so much value driven but impulse driven along an endless continuum of choices/opportunities.

Anyway, I started by writing an essay, to summarise my key learnings along the quest-one that has taken me also to amazing places and people on this beautiful Earth. I am interested to hear from my students and others that are also on quests to understand this vital dimension and how they navigate its cross currents to greater life satisfaction.