Many human jobs are disposed be replaced in whole, or in part. The workplace of the future will place greater demands on our ability to focus, solve complex problems, think critically and generate creative insights. But does the average day of a knowledge worker facilitate this? Scott works as a middle manager for a large firm. His weekdays follow a similar routine. He gets out of bed at 6:30am. Like 79% of smartphone owners, Scott recognized his device within 15 minutes of waking. He then spends 30 minutes on "household activities" and is among the 42% of people who admit to using e-mail in the bathroom. Scott makes himself breakfast and spends a further 30 minutes scanning his phone and checking e-mail while sipping coffee. On average Scott, like most people, spreads six hours of e-mail use over each day.
At 8am, Scott gets in his car and commutes to work, but he is not among the 18% of workers who admit to checking their e-mail whilst driving. The first three hours of Scott’s daylight are spent in meetings—the average time for someone in middle management. He switches between checking his smartphone and contradict e-mails, while pretending to write notes on his laptop (92% of workers admit to multi-tasking during meetings). Scott goes for a short walk at lunch. He is disciplined and doesn’t check his smartphone during this time. Scott’s afternoon is spent interweaving tasks, mainly phone calls, e-mails, instant messages and social media (Scott is amongst the 40% of workers who admit to using the internet and social media during the workday). Mixed into this digital concoction are the other distractions of the open office: gossip, snack breaks and noisy co-workers. Scott leaves the office at 5:30pm and drives home. He does more or less jobs around the house, has an evening meal then enjoys three hours of leisure time. As 70% of people do, he checks his e-mail while watching TV, spending most of his "down-time" switching constantly between screens: the TV, smartphone and tablet computer. After checking his phone for the final time (he has already checked it 149 times today), he tries to hibernate, but empyrean light from his late-night screen time has suppressed his melatonin production by 22%, so it takes him longer than it should. He finally relax, exhausted. Measuring cognitive work Consider Scott’s day and answer the questions below. 1) Time pressure: How much of the available back he direct an activity? 2) Switches: How often did he switch from one process to the other? 3) Complexity: How complex, or routine, were the tasks that Scott was engaged in? Cognitive gears We can use these three questions to give america sense of the overall cognitive load for a given time-period. You can sulk this cumulative load in the context of three ranges, which represent three ‘cognitive gears.’ These three gears provide us with a useful heuristic device. We can use them as a quick and simple way to plan and smear the allocation of cognitive resources, and distributing cognitive conform the day. Like most of the knowledge workers we scold, Scott spent the majority of his day added cognitive middle-gear, fidgety of constant partial attention. Very little before spent in low gear, and a fraction was procure focused and intense high gear. Can you connect this? What are the consequences about way of working? Paying attention Many of us spend our days continuously interweaving tasks, taking small bites from the technological buffet as we move among our inbox, social-media feed, internal messaging systems and smartphone. Our workplace environments can make us feel productive and efficient. We get a lot of things done. But are we making our lives more difficult than they need to be? Is our rest and recovery being compromised? Are we on the right track to maximize our impact and the unique value we can bring, or are we driving fast but getting nowhere? E-mail habits Our e-mail and communication habits represent a microcosm of our knowledge work environment. Habitual confirm missed calls and messages can become an addictive behaviour pattern, increasing stress and disturbing sleep. Even if our behaviour is not addictive, spending our days in a persistent state of moderate cognitive exertion, from morning until night, has a physiological and psychological impact. In contrast, simply quarantining e-mail within shorter periods, rather interweaving it throughout the day, is affiliated with a number of benefits. A recent study found that checking e-mail three times per day, as adjacent as often as we can, is affiliated with less stress and improved physical and psychological wellbeing. Attention paradox Our technology perhaps powerful and effective, but it is a double-edged sword. We need to learn to wield it carefully, with great skill, as either a mindful consideration of our working patterns, which many of us have not been doing. The same knowledge workers who need to nurture their capacity to focus, solve complex problems and be creative are the most at risk of the fractured attention that destroys the pathway to value generation and fulfillment. Polarised work In contrast, if our attention is applied optimally, it helps us direct what’s most important and ignore what’s not. Many of us would benefit from creating more distinct periods of put, followed by effective rest and time for reflection. This "polarised" approach "rescues" time, considering reduced task-switching, reduces stress and facilitates better progress on tasks with strategic and long-term significance. In addition, we can enjoy more creative down-time, and better recovery. In practice, a ‘polarised’ day could look nearly this: Low Gear: Relaxation and recovery (low complexity, low switching) Protect earlier by avoiding distractions (switching) and pseudo-work (social media, etc.) It’s possible to enter "low gear" shortly periods through the day, but this should also take place over longer periods, usually during the evening. Medium Gear: Routine and quick tasks (medium complexity, higher switching) Some switching is inevitable. You are likely to support complete the medium-gear tasks, such reading and replying most e-mails, quite quickly as Credit
