Productivity (execution) in the workplace is a measurement that most companies look at and measure. Large companies have so many challenges with productivity that they probably waste an average of 10,000 hours a day, 50,000 hours a week and 200,000 hours a month! To make that relevant, if we work 40 hours a week, for 50 weeks a year for 45 years that’s 90,000 hours we would spend working. In two weeks large companies’ waste more hours than we work our entire life and that’s from a conservative view. Now, I must point out that these numbers are not scientific, and I have zero foundation to publish these numbers, but after working with very large organizations for over ten years, I have reached these very non-scientific numbers.
As I work projects with large companies I’m always amazed at how these large organizations make money. Now I understand that lost productivity is always built into the overall business plan, but what I see is absolutely absurd. Way too much time is wasted every day. What could we do with that time? Continue to waste it, spend it or invest it. You could cut the workforce by 25% and still get 50 % more productivity!
What we need to do is evaluate, who is doing what, and is what they are doing productive or just busy? We have a lot a people working in that “rocking chair”. Remember, a rocking chair has a lot of movement but never moves forward. Are we productive or just busy? Most people split time between the two, and to be productive 100% of the time is not realistic. That being said we must evaluate what jobs are truly productive and what jobs spend most of their time being busy. Most people should be doing at least 75% of productive or profitable action, and if not, we should think about eliminating the position, or finding a role for them that is more suitable for them and the organization. Wasting our time is what we do best. We could continue to waste time and most companies would continue to move in whatever direction they are moving in. Some will continue to grow, some will stumble, and others will go under. But what if we concentrated on spending or investing our time a little more wisely? Just say 10% wiser; I’m not even looking for a huge leap here. What could 10% more productivity mean to a large organization? To a small business? To an individual? Let’s take a look at a large organization. If they waste 50,000 hours a week, what if they could buy back 5,000 hours of time per week, 20,000 hours of time per month? That might be worth looking into don’t you think? What about a small business? What if a small business could buy back 40 hours a month (10 employees 4 hours a month more productivity)? That’s 480 hours a year. Not bad. What about an individual? What if we could be more productive by 15 minutes each workday to move our career in the right direction, or 15 minutes a day building our abilities, or 15 minutes a day spending more quality time with our family? To be conservative let’s say we only do this 4 days a week, leaving 3 days to do our same routine. That’s 60 minutes a week, 4 hours a month, 48 hours a year. Over ten years that’s 480 hours of being more productive. In ten years could you build a business? Grow your career? Grow your family? Build your marketability? Hopefully all of us will see ten years, so here is the question. If we do or if we don’t become more productive, what’s the cost? Ten years will come and go, so what are we going to do with our time, waste it, spend it, or invest it?
If I told you every day you wake up you would have $1440 in your bank account, you couldn’t save it, and whatever you didn’t spend you would lose, what would you do with it? That is how many minutes each day we have? How are you going to spend and invest your time?
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