Why work doesn't happen at work
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0:00 - 0:02So I'm going to talk about work,
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0:02 - 0:04specifically why people can't seem
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0:04 - 0:06to get work done at work,
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0:06 - 0:09which is a problem we all kind of have.
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0:09 - 0:11But let's, sort of, start at the beginning.
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0:11 - 0:14So we have companies and non-profits and charities
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0:14 - 0:16and all these groups
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0:16 - 0:18that have employees
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0:18 - 0:20or volunteers of some sort.
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0:20 - 0:23And they expect these people who work for them
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0:23 - 0:25to do great work --
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0:25 - 0:27I would hope, at least.
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0:27 - 0:29At least good work, hopefully, at least it's good work --
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0:29 - 0:31hopefully great work.
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0:31 - 0:33And so what they typically do is they decide
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0:33 - 0:35that all these people need to come together in one place
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0:35 - 0:37to do that work.
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0:37 - 0:40So a company, or a charity, or an organization of any kind,
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0:40 - 0:42they typically -- unless you're working in Africa,
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0:42 - 0:44if you're really lucky to do that --
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0:44 - 0:46most people have to go to an office every day.
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0:46 - 0:48And so these companies,
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0:48 - 0:50they build offices.
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0:50 - 0:53They go out and they buy a building, or they rent a building,
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0:53 - 0:55or they lease some space,
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0:55 - 0:58and they fill the space with stuff.
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0:58 - 1:01They fill it with tables, or desks,
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1:01 - 1:03chairs, computer equipment,
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1:03 - 1:05software,
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1:05 - 1:07Internet access,
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1:07 - 1:10maybe a fridge, maybe a few other things,
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1:10 - 1:12and they expect their employees, or their volunteers,
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1:12 - 1:15to come to that location every day to do great work.
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1:15 - 1:18It seems like it's perfectly reasonable to ask that.
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1:18 - 1:20However, if you actually talk to people
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1:20 - 1:22and even question yourself,
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1:22 - 1:24and you ask yourself,
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1:24 - 1:27where do you really want to go when you really need to get something done?
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1:27 - 1:29You'll find out that people don't say
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1:29 - 1:31what businesses think they would say.
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1:31 - 1:33If you ask people the question: where do you really need to go
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1:33 - 1:35when you need to get something done?
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1:35 - 1:37Typically you get three different kinds of answers.
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1:37 - 1:40One is kind of a place or a location or a room.
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1:40 - 1:42Another one is a moving object
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1:42 - 1:44and a third is a time.
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1:44 - 1:46So here's some examples.
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1:46 - 1:49When I ask people -- and I've been asking people this question for about 10 years --
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1:49 - 1:51I ask them, "Where do you go when you really need to get something done?"
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1:51 - 1:54I'll hear things like, the porch, the deck,
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1:54 - 1:56the kitchen.
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1:56 - 1:58I'll hear things like an extra room in the house,
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1:58 - 2:00the basement,
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2:00 - 2:03the coffee shop, the library.
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2:03 - 2:06And then you'll hear things like the train,
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2:06 - 2:09a plane, a car -- so, the commute.
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2:09 - 2:11And then you'll hear people say,
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2:11 - 2:13"Well, it doesn't really matter where I am,
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2:13 - 2:16as long as it's really early in the morning or really late at night or on the weekends."
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2:16 - 2:19You almost never hear someone say the office.
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2:19 - 2:22But businesses are spending all this money on this place called the office,
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2:22 - 2:24and they're making people go to it all the time,
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2:24 - 2:27yet people don't do work in the office.
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2:27 - 2:29What is that about?
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2:29 - 2:31Why is that?
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2:31 - 2:34Why is that happening?
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2:34 - 2:36And what you find out is that, if you dig a little bit deeper,
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2:36 - 2:38you find out that people --
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2:38 - 2:40this is what happens --
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2:40 - 2:42people go to work,
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2:42 - 2:44and they're basically trading in their workday
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2:44 - 2:46for a series of "work moments."
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2:46 - 2:48That's what happens at the office.
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2:48 - 2:50You don't have a workday anymore. You have work moments.
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2:50 - 2:53It's like the front door of the office is like a Cuisinart,
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2:53 - 2:55and you walk in and your day is shredded to bits,
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2:55 - 2:58because you have 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there,
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2:58 - 3:00and then something else happens and you're pulled off your work,
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3:00 - 3:03and you've got to do something else, then you have 20 minutes, then it's lunch.
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3:03 - 3:05Then you have something else to do.
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3:05 - 3:08Then you've got 15 minutes, and someone pulls you aside and asks you this question,
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3:08 - 3:11and before you know it, it's 5 p.m.,
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3:11 - 3:13and you look back on the day,
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3:13 - 3:15and you realize that you didn't get anything done.
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3:15 - 3:17I mean, we've all been through this.
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3:17 - 3:19We probably went through it yesterday,
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3:19 - 3:21or the day before, or the day before that.
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3:21 - 3:24You look back on your day, and you're like, I got nothing done today.
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3:24 - 3:26I was at work.
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3:26 - 3:29I sat at my desk. I used my expensive computer.
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3:29 - 3:31I used the software they told me to use.
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3:31 - 3:34I went to these meetings I was asked to go to.
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3:34 - 3:36I did these conference calls. I did all this stuff.
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3:36 - 3:39But I didn't actually do anything.
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3:39 - 3:41I just did tasks.
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3:41 - 3:43I didn't actually get meaningful work done.
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3:43 - 3:46And what you find is that, especially with creative people --
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3:46 - 3:48designers, programmers,
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3:48 - 3:50writers, engineers,
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3:50 - 3:52thinkers --
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3:52 - 3:54that people really need
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3:54 - 3:57long stretches of uninterrupted time to get something done.
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3:57 - 4:00You cannot ask somebody to be creative in 15 minutes
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4:00 - 4:02and really think about a problem.
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4:02 - 4:04You might have a quick idea,
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4:04 - 4:07but to be in deep thought about a problem and really consider a problem carefully,
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4:07 - 4:10you need long stretches of uninterrupted time.
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4:10 - 4:13And even though the workday is typically eight hours,
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4:13 - 4:16how many people here have ever had eight hours to themselves at the office?
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4:16 - 4:18How about seven hours?
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4:18 - 4:21Six? Five? Four?
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4:21 - 4:24When's the last time you had three hours to yourself at the office?
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4:24 - 4:26Two hours? One, maybe?
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4:26 - 4:28Very, very few people actually have
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4:28 - 4:31long stretches of uninterrupted time at an office.
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4:31 - 4:34And this is why people choose to do work at home,
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4:34 - 4:36or they might go to the office,
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4:36 - 4:38but they might go to the office really early in the day,
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4:38 - 4:40or late at night when no one's around,
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4:40 - 4:43or they stick around after everyone's left, or they go in on the weekends,
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4:43 - 4:45or they get work done on the plane,
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4:45 - 4:47or they get work done in the car or in the train
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4:47 - 4:49because there are no distractions.
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4:49 - 4:51Now, there are different kinds of distractions,
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4:51 - 4:53but there aren't the really bad kinds of distractions
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4:53 - 4:55that I'll talk about in just a minute.
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4:55 - 4:57And this sort of whole phenomenon
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4:57 - 4:59of having short bursts of time to get things done
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4:59 - 5:01reminds me of another thing
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5:01 - 5:03that doesn't work when you're interrupted,
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5:03 - 5:05and that is sleep.
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5:05 - 5:07I think that sleep and work are very closely related,
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5:07 - 5:09and it's not just that you can work while you're sleeping
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5:09 - 5:11and you can sleep while you're working.
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5:11 - 5:13That's not really what I mean.
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5:13 - 5:15I'm talking specifically about the fact
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5:15 - 5:17that sleep and work
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5:17 - 5:19are phased-based,
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5:19 - 5:21or stage-based, events.
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5:22 - 5:25So sleep is about sleep phases, or stages --
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5:25 - 5:27some people call them different things.
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5:27 - 5:29There's five of them,
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5:29 - 5:32and in order to get to the really deep ones, the really meaningful ones,
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5:32 - 5:34you have to go through the early ones.
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5:34 - 5:36And if you're interrupted while you're going through the early ones --
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5:36 - 5:38if someone bumps you in bed,
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5:38 - 5:41or if there's a sound, or whatever happens --
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5:41 - 5:43you don't just pick up where you left off.
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5:43 - 5:45If you're interrupted and woken up,
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5:45 - 5:47you have to start again.
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5:47 - 5:50So you have to go back a few phases and start again.
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5:50 - 5:52And what ends up happening -- sometimes you might have days like this
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5:52 - 5:54where you wake up at eight in the morning, or seven in the morning,
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5:54 - 5:56or whenever you get up,
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5:56 - 5:58and you're like, man, I didn't really sleep very well.
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5:58 - 6:01I did the sleep thing -- I went to bed, I laid down --
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6:01 - 6:03but I didn't really sleep.
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6:03 - 6:06People say you go to sleep,
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6:06 - 6:08but you really don't go to sleep, you go towards sleep.
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6:08 - 6:11It just takes a while. You've got to go through these phases and stuff,
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6:11 - 6:13and if you're interrupted, you don't sleep well.
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6:13 - 6:15So how do we expect -- does anyone here expect someone to sleep well
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6:15 - 6:17if they're interrupted all night?
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6:17 - 6:19I don't think anyone would say yes.
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6:19 - 6:21Why do we expect people to work well
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6:21 - 6:23if they're being interrupted all day at the office?
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6:23 - 6:26How can we possibly expect people to do their job
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6:26 - 6:28if they're going to the office to be interrupted?
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6:28 - 6:31That doesn't really seem like it makes a lot of sense to me.
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6:31 - 6:33So what are these interruptions that happen at the office
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6:33 - 6:35that don't happen at other places?
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6:35 - 6:37Because in other places, you can have interruptions,
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6:37 - 6:39like, you can have the TV,
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6:39 - 6:41or you could go for a walk,
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6:41 - 6:43or there's a fridge downstairs,
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6:43 - 6:46or you've got your own couch, or whatever you want to do.
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6:46 - 6:48And if you talk to certain managers,
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6:48 - 6:51they'll tell you that they don't want their employees to work at home
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6:51 - 6:53because of these distractions.
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6:53 - 6:55They'll also say --
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6:55 - 6:57sometimes they'll also say,
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6:57 - 6:59"Well, if I can't see the person, how do I know they're working?"
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6:59 - 7:02which is ridiculous, of course, but that's one of the excuses that managers give.
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7:02 - 7:04And I'm one of these managers.
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7:04 - 7:06I understand. I know how this goes.
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7:06 - 7:08We all have to improve on this sort of thing.
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7:08 - 7:10But oftentimes they'll cite distractions.
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7:10 - 7:12"I can't let someone work at home.
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7:12 - 7:14They'll watch TV. They'll do this other thing."
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7:14 - 7:17It turns out that those aren't the things that are really distracting.
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7:17 - 7:19Because those are voluntary distractions.
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7:19 - 7:21You decide when you want to be distracted by the TV.
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7:21 - 7:23You decide when you want to turn something on.
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7:23 - 7:26You decide when you want to go downstairs or go for a walk.
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7:26 - 7:28At the office, most of the interruptions and distractions
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7:28 - 7:30that really cause people not to get work done
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7:30 - 7:32are involuntary.
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7:32 - 7:35So let's go through a couple of those.
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7:35 - 7:37Now, managers and bosses
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7:37 - 7:40will often have you think that the real distractions at work
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7:40 - 7:43are things like Facebook and Twitter
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7:43 - 7:46and YouTube and other websites,
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7:46 - 7:48and in fact, they'll go so far
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7:48 - 7:50as to actually ban these sites at work.
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7:50 - 7:53Some of you may work at places where you can't get to these certain sites.
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7:53 - 7:56I mean, is this China? What the hell is going on here?
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7:56 - 7:58You can't go to a website at work,
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7:58 - 8:00and that's the problem, that's why people aren't getting work done,
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8:00 - 8:02because they're going to Facebook and they're going to Twitter?
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8:02 - 8:05That's kind of ridiculous. It's a total decoy.
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8:07 - 8:09And today's Facebook and Twitter and YouTube,
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8:09 - 8:12these things are just modern-day smoke breaks.
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8:12 - 8:14No one cared about letting people take a smoke break for 15 minutes
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8:14 - 8:1610 years ago,
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8:16 - 8:18so why does everyone care about someone going to Facebook here and there,
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8:18 - 8:20or Twitter here and there, or YouTube here and there?
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8:20 - 8:23Those aren't the real problems in the office.
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8:23 - 8:25The real problems are what I like to call
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8:25 - 8:27the M&Ms,
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8:27 - 8:29the Managers and the Meetings.
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8:29 - 8:32Those are the real problems in the modern office today.
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8:32 - 8:35And this is why things don't get done at work --
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8:35 - 8:37it's because of the M&Ms.
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8:37 - 8:39Now what's interesting is,
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8:39 - 8:42if you listen to all the places that people talk about doing work --
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8:42 - 8:44like at home, or in a car, or on a plane,
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8:44 - 8:46or late at night, or early in the morning --
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8:46 - 8:48you don't find managers and meetings.
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8:48 - 8:51You find a lot of other distractions, but you don't find managers and meetings.
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8:51 - 8:54So these are the things that you don't find elsewhere,
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8:54 - 8:57but you do find at the office.
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8:57 - 8:59And managers are basically people
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8:59 - 9:01whose job it is to interrupt people.
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9:01 - 9:04That's pretty much what managers are for. They're for interrupting people.
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9:04 - 9:06They don't really do the work,
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9:06 - 9:09so they have to make sure everyone else is doing the work, which is an interruption.
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9:09 - 9:11And we have a lot of managers in the world now,
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9:11 - 9:13and there's a lot of people in the world now,
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9:13 - 9:15and there's a lot of interruptions in the world now because of these managers.
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9:15 - 9:17They have to check in: "Hey, how's it going?
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9:17 - 9:19Show me what's up," and this sort of thing
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9:19 - 9:21and they keep interrupting you at the wrong time,
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9:21 - 9:24while you're actually trying to do something they're paying you to do,
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9:24 - 9:26they tend to interrupt you.
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9:26 - 9:28That's kind of bad.
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9:28 - 9:31But what's even worse is the thing that managers do most of all,
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9:31 - 9:33which is call meetings.
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9:33 - 9:35And meetings are just toxic,
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9:35 - 9:38terrible, poisonous things
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9:38 - 9:40during the day at work.
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9:40 - 9:43We all know this to be true,
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9:43 - 9:45and you would never see a spontaneous meeting called by employees.
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9:45 - 9:47It doesn't work that way.
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9:47 - 9:49The manager calls the meeting
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9:49 - 9:51so the employees can all come together,
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9:51 - 9:53and it's an incredibly disruptive thing to do to people --
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9:53 - 9:55is to say, "Hey look,
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9:55 - 9:58we're going to bring 10 people together right now and have a meeting.
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9:58 - 10:00I don't care what you're doing.
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10:00 - 10:03Just, you've got to stop doing what you're doing, so you can have this meeting."
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10:03 - 10:06I mean, what are the chances that all 10 people are ready to stop?
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10:06 - 10:08What if they're thinking about something important?
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10:08 - 10:10What if they're doing important work?
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10:10 - 10:12All of a sudden you're telling them that they have to stop doing that
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10:12 - 10:14to do something else.
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10:14 - 10:17So they go into a meeting room, they get together,
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10:17 - 10:20and they talk about stuff that doesn't really matter usually.
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10:20 - 10:22Because meetings aren't work.
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10:22 - 10:25Meetings are places to go to talk about things you're supposed to be doing later.
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10:25 - 10:27But meetings also procreate.
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10:27 - 10:29So one meeting tends to lead to another meeting
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10:29 - 10:31and tends to lead to another meeting.
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10:31 - 10:33There's often too many people in the meetings,
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10:33 - 10:36and they're very, very expensive to the organization.
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10:36 - 10:39Companies often think of a one-hour meeting as a one-hour meeting,
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10:39 - 10:42but that's not true, unless there's only one person in that meeting.
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10:42 - 10:45If there are 10 people in the meeting, it's a 10-hour meeting; it's not a one-hour meeting.
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10:45 - 10:48It's 10 hours of productivity taken from the rest of the organization
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10:48 - 10:50to have this one one-hour meeting,
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10:50 - 10:53which probably should have been handled by two or three people
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10:53 - 10:55talking for a few minutes.
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10:55 - 10:57But instead, there's a long scheduled meeting,
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10:57 - 11:00because meetings are scheduled the way software works,
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11:00 - 11:03which is in increments of 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, or an hour.
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11:03 - 11:05You don't schedule an eight-hour meeting with Outlook.
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11:05 - 11:07You can't. I don't even know if you can.
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11:07 - 11:10You can go 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour.
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11:10 - 11:12And so we tend to fill these times up
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11:12 - 11:14when things should really go really quickly.
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11:14 - 11:17So meetings and managers are two major problems in businesses today,
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11:17 - 11:19especially to offices.
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11:19 - 11:22These things don't exist outside of the office.
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11:22 - 11:24So I have some suggestions
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11:24 - 11:27to remedy the situation.
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11:27 - 11:29What can managers do --
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11:29 - 11:31enlightened managers, hopefully --
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11:31 - 11:34what can they do to make the office a better place for people to work,
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11:34 - 11:37so it's not the last resort, but it's the first resort?
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11:37 - 11:39It's that people start to say,
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11:39 - 11:41"When I really want to get stuff done, I go to the office."
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11:41 - 11:43Because the offices are well equipped,
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11:43 - 11:45everything should be there for them to do their work,
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11:45 - 11:48but they don't want to go there right now, so how do we change that?
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11:48 - 11:50I have three suggestions I'll share with you guys.
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11:50 - 11:53I have about three minutes, so that'll fit perfectly.
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11:53 - 11:56We've all heard of the casual Friday thing.
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11:56 - 11:58I don't know if people still do that.
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11:58 - 12:01But how about "no-talk Thursdays?"
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12:01 - 12:03How about --
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12:03 - 12:05pick one Thursday once a month
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12:05 - 12:08and cut that day in half and just say the afternoon -- I'll make it really easy for you.
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12:08 - 12:10So just the afternoon, one Thursday.
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12:10 - 12:12The first Thursday of the month -- just the afternoon --
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12:12 - 12:14nobody in the office can talk to each other.
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12:14 - 12:16Just silence, that's it.
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12:16 - 12:18And what you'll find
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12:18 - 12:20is that a tremendous amount of work actually gets done
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12:20 - 12:22when no one talks to each other.
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12:22 - 12:24This is when people actually get stuff done,
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12:24 - 12:26is when no one's bothering them, when no one's interrupting them.
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12:26 - 12:29And you can give someone -- giving someone four hours of uninterrupted time
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12:29 - 12:31is the best gift you can give anybody at work.
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12:31 - 12:33It's better than a computer.
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12:33 - 12:36It's better than a new monitor. It's better than new software,
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12:36 - 12:38or whatever people typically use.
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12:38 - 12:40Giving them four hours of quiet time at the office
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12:40 - 12:42is going to be incredibly valuable.
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12:42 - 12:44And if you try that, I think you'll find that you agree.
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12:44 - 12:46And maybe, hopefully you can do it more often.
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12:46 - 12:48So maybe it's every other week,
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12:48 - 12:50or every week, once a week,
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12:50 - 12:52afternoons no one can talk to each other.
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12:52 - 12:55That's something that you'll find will really, really work.
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12:55 - 12:57Another thing you can try
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12:57 - 12:59is switching from active
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12:59 - 13:01communication and collaboration,
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13:01 - 13:03which is like face-to-face stuff,
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13:03 - 13:06tapping people on the shoulder, saying hi to them, having meetings,
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13:06 - 13:08and replace that with more passive models of communication,
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13:08 - 13:11using things like email and instant messaging,
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13:11 - 13:14or collaboration products -- things like that.
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13:14 - 13:17Now some people might say email is really distracting
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13:17 - 13:19and I.M. is really distracting,
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13:19 - 13:21and these other things are really distracting,
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13:21 - 13:24but they're distracting at a time of your own choice and your own choosing.
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13:24 - 13:27You can quit the email app; you can't quit your boss.
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13:27 - 13:29You can quit I.M.;
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13:29 - 13:31you can't hide your manager.
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13:31 - 13:33You can put these things away,
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13:33 - 13:36and then you can be interrupted on your own schedule, at your own time,
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13:36 - 13:38when you're available, when you're ready to go again.
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13:38 - 13:41Because work, like sleep, happens in phases.
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13:41 - 13:43So you're going to be kind of going up and doing some work,
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13:43 - 13:45and then you're going to come down from that work,
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13:45 - 13:47and then maybe it's time to check that email, or check that I.M.
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13:47 - 13:50And there are very, very few things that are that urgent
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13:50 - 13:53that need to happen, that need to be answered right this second.
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13:53 - 13:55So if you're a manager,
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13:55 - 13:57start encouraging people to use more things like I.M. and email
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13:57 - 13:59and other things that someone else can put away
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13:59 - 14:01and then get back to you on their own schedule.
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14:01 - 14:04And the last suggestion I have
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14:04 - 14:07is that, if you do have a meeting coming up,
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14:07 - 14:09if you have the power,
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14:09 - 14:12just cancel. Just cancel that next meeting.
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14:13 - 14:15Today's Friday -- so Monday, usually people have meetings on Monday.
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14:15 - 14:17Just don't have it.
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14:17 - 14:19I don't mean move it;
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14:19 - 14:21I mean just erase it from memory, it's gone.
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14:21 - 14:24And you'll find out that everything will be just fine.
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14:24 - 14:26All these discussions and decisions you thought you had to make
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14:26 - 14:28at this one time at 9 a.m. on Monday,
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14:28 - 14:30just forget about them, and things will be just fine.
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14:30 - 14:33People have a more open morning, they can actually think,
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14:33 - 14:35and you'll find out that maybe all these things you thought you had to do,
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14:35 - 14:37you don't actually have to do.
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14:37 - 14:39So those are just three quick suggestions I wanted to give you guys
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14:39 - 14:41to think about this.
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14:41 - 14:43And I hope that some of these ideas
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14:43 - 14:45were at least provocative enough
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14:45 - 14:47for managers and bosses and business owners
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14:47 - 14:50and organizers and people who are in charge of other people
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14:50 - 14:52to think about laying off a little bit
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14:52 - 14:54and giving people some more time to get some work done.
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14:54 - 14:56And I think it'll all pay off in the end.
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14:56 - 14:58So thanks for listening.
-
14:58 - 15:00(Applause)
- Title:
- Why work doesn't happen at work
- Speaker:
- Jason Fried
- Description:
-
Jason Fried has a radical theory of working: that the office isn't a good place to do it. At TEDxMidwest he lays out the main problems (call them the M&Ms) and offers three suggestions to make work work.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:00
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why work doesn't happen at work | ||
Camille Martínez edited English subtitles for Why work doesn't happen at work | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Why work doesn't happen at work | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Why work doesn't happen at work | ||
TED edited English subtitles for Why work doesn't happen at work | ||
TED added a translation |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 6/8/2015.