The longer it takes to complete, the better quality it must be

There’s a popular study that polled two thousand workers about their daily schedules.

One question was, if you had to state a figure, how long do you think you spend productively working during work hours on a daily basis?

The results of revealed the average answer to be just under three hours. In a typical workday, that nets out to less than forty percent.

Are you surprised by this number?

Not me. If you’ve ever worked in an office before, three hours makes perfect sense

First of all, most people give tasks more time than they really need. Parkinson’s law, which states that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion, is a very real thing. If people have a week to complete a task, that’s exactly how long it will take.

Secondly, most employees spend the majority of their workday on bullshit. Checking social media, reading news, chit chatting with coworkers, eating, drinking and smoking, attending pointless meetings, playing on their phones, searching for new jobs and so on. People only stay at the office for eight hours because social pressure and the industrial revolution have conditioned our workforce to believe that eight hours is the right amount of time.

Lastly, although working smarter not harder has a huge return on investment for the organization, it comes with a social cost. Because within any team dynamic, efficiency isn’t as appreciated as people might think. Employees are very competitive, cagey and comparative when it comes to total hours worked.

The silent assumption is, the longer someone’s task takes to complete, the better quality it must inherently be. Which means the people who produce significant output with minimal wasted effort are perceived as slacking, cheating or inhuman.

Wait, who is this complete psychopath who is organized, relaxed and efficient every day? Asshole probably meets proper screen time, sleep and exercise guidelines too. Screw that guy. He’s not going to steal my promotion. Better stay at the office until ten tonight, even though my work was finished around lunch.

Point being, it’s a lovely gesture when companies tell employees that they don’t care what time they get to the office, as long as they get their work done. But that’s more for paper than practice.

In reality, even if you only need three hours to accomplish your tasks, you’re probably going to have to stick around for the full eight.

Better find a project to keep you busy, or at least preserve the illusion that you’re actually working.

If you had to state a figure, how long do you think you spend productively working during work hours on a daily basis?