How punctual are you about the time you start work?
\nMost people would answer positively, with a \"fairly punctual.\"
\nBut how punctual are we about the time we finish work?
\nIt's far less common to give the same answer to this question!
\nMore and more often, the end of the time devoted to your job is neither sharp nor defined: a phenomenon known as the \"erosion of work-life boundaries.\"
\nNobody ever forgets to go to the office, while many people forget personal commitments.
\nThe longer you keep ignoring certain limits, the more problematic it becomes not to be able to set a clear boundary on work.
\nHow do you know you have a busyness problem?
\nThere are some very common signals to recognize in typical everyday scenarios.
\nYou live with too much to do, knowing that if you had one more day available, that would be filled with tasks and commitments right away too.
\nA constant feeling of falling behind on deadlines adds tension and anxiety to the day.
\nYou feel overwhelmed by commitments and fear you'll never manage to finish your to-do list.
\nThe to-do list, by the way, seems alive! It keeps filling up with additions that pile on top of the tasks already there.
\nTo keep up with delegated work, you end up working beyond the planned hours, accepting interruptions throughout the day that come from outside but also from thoughts in your own mind (which trigger more things to do).
\nThese are very common problems, but people rarely decide to act on them, often because they don't understand the major impact they have.
\nBeing busy, feeling you have too much to do and not respecting personal and professional spaces and times is a steadily growing trend.
\nThe numbers are rising and the negative consequences are increasing.
\nSeveral studies have looked into this topic.
\nThe Eurofound study \"Right to disconnect: Implementation and impact at company level\" (2023), conducted on workers in Belgium, France, Italy and Spain, provides data on the shifting of work-life boundaries:
\nover 80% of respondents are contacted for work reasons outside their contractual hours in a typical week
\nin Italy, the share of people contacted every day is the highest of the four countries: 20% by their managers and 42% by their colleagues
\n61% respond to all or almost all communications received outside working hours, and 57% say they feel obliged to respond
\nwhere a company rule on disconnecting exists, the share of people reporting stress or anxiety in the previous twelve months drops from 38% to 28%
\nThe studies by Derks, D., van Duin, D., Tims, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2015) in \"Smartphone use and work-home interference: The moderating role of social norms and employee work engagement\" and Barber, L. K., & Santuzzi, A. M. (2015) in \"Please respond ASAP: workplace telepressure and employee recovery\" found that:
\nevening availability depends mainly on the social norms perceived in the company, that is, on what colleagues and managers take for granted in terms of availability
\nthe perceived urgency to respond immediately to work messages (telepressure) predicts physical and cognitive exhaustion, poorer sleep quality and absenteeism, regardless of the actual workload
\nPega, F., Nafradi, B., Momen, N. C., et al. (2021), in \"Global, regional and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to exposure to long working hours for 194 countries, 2000-2016: a systematic analysis from WHO/ILO joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury,\" showed that:
\nFinally, Pencavel, J. (2014), \"The productivity of working hours,\" found that:
\nafter about 50 hours/week of work, productivity drops sharply
\nadditional hours beyond 55 hours/week produce almost zero real output
\nThe studies clearly show how mistaken the belief is that to be productive you need to work more, work beyond your hours and during the hours that should be devoted to rest and recovering your energy.
\nIt's fair to ask, then, what effects the busyness problem produces.
\nThere are 4 most evident effects:
\n1- project times and costs increase:
\nthe inability to respect a boundary and to manage incoming inputs that create detours and delays drives up project times and costs.
\nIn addition, team members who respond outside working hours set off unhealthy habits, wear themselves out and lower their productivity, affecting the quality of their work (and this too weighs on the project budget).
\n2- worsening lifestyle and well-being: the available research associates difficulty in maintaining boundaries between life and work with worse physical and emotional health; it measures an association, not a trend over time.
\n3- rising employee turnover: so much stress drives people to leave their jobs because of unsustainable conditions.
\n4- neglect and unreliability in your own roles: the more devoted you are to your job, the worse you spend the time devoted to your other roles, becoming negligent and unreliable.
\nIt's easy to see that, if the situation keeps evolving the same way, the negative effects will tend to grow.
\nOnce the problem has been identified, two options open up: ignore it, accepting it as part of normal life and living with its consequences, or step in and try to solve it.
\nHowever, deciding to act doesn't automatically guarantee the result you want.
\nNot all solutions are truly effective.
\nPeople often choose a solution that isn't the priority, and that therefore doesn't solve the problem for good.
\nAmong the most common solutions people come up with to solve the busyness problem are:
\n1- Taking time management courses: the belief is that time is what creates the problem and that knowing how to organize your calendar guarantees closer adherence to plans.
\nCommitments known in advance aren't the only ones to manage: this solution, in fact, doesn't take into account the new inputs that arrive during work, both from delegated tasks and interruptions and from thoughts and emotions.
\n2- Strict rules on respecting boundaries: you choose maximum discipline to respect work-life boundaries, but at the risk of making the situation worse, because the amount of work that forces you to keep working may be real
\nIf the things to do really exist, are many and can't be avoided, this solution risks making things worse: by imposing a forced stop, the interruption creates a pile-up of activities that aren't completed but only interrupted, and in fact the work doesn't decrease — quite the opposite!
\nAt first glance these two solutions may seem valid, but in reality they don't solve the problem at its root.
\nThe reason is simple: they focus on the effects rather than the causes.
\nWhen tackling the busyness problem, as with any other business issue, it's essential to start from the elements that generated it and not from those that only represent its consequences.
\nTo achieve concrete, lasting results in solving a problem, you need a method.
\nYou need to analyze how activities are carried out, check whether procedures are followed and identify the weak points of the process.
\nEvery problem, in fact, stems from a precise cause.
\nThat's why you need to understand which shortcoming or anomaly produced the unwanted situation and introduce a practical solution capable of eliminating it.
\nThis article tackles the busyness problem by proposing an operational approach that works directly on its real cause.
\nThe same principle can be used to effectively tackle most organizational problems.
\nThis conviction gave rise to \"Un Problema alla Settimana\" (One Problem a Week), the Prodability Academy course that offers a 50-minute online lesson every week, devoted to a concrete topic in work and management.
\nEach lesson tackles one specific problem at a time, using the same precise, decisive method.
\nThe course has a twofold aim: to offer tools you can use right away to solve the most common problems in companies and, at the same time, to consistently train the ability to identify and solve problems in a structured way.
\nThe first step? Analyze the process involved and understand where the problem really originates.
\nSolving a problem for good is the result of a precise method.
\nPeople often think it's enough to find a solution, but the real starting point is different: understanding the problem in depth.
\nWithout an accurate analysis of the problem, you risk acting only on the effects, leaving untouched the causes that generated it.
\nAnalysis is the most important phase of the entire problem-solving path. When it's done correctly, the way forward becomes much clearer and the solution emerges naturally, also turning out to be simpler to apply.
\nIt's a valuable cross-functional skill that requires a structured method but that, once acquired, can be used in any context: from the company to your personal life.
\nAnalyzing the problem starts with asking a fundamental question: in which phase of the process is the cause that generated it?
\nThe phases of the process where the real cause of the busyness problem may lie are:
\n1- planning the week
\n2- start-of-day check (time is managed once a day; reorganizing the day several times creates additional tasks to do)
\n3- handling delegation inputs (how to handle the input that arrives as a request for things to do for others)
\n4- any rescheduling
\n5- end-of-week report
\nThis article explores the phase of the process concerning the handling of delegation inputs.
\nIn the phase of handling delegation inputs, what can the cause of busyness be?
\nPeople have trouble handling delegated tasks because there is no method (precise rules) for collecting and accepting delegated tasks.
\nTo be productive and effective in carrying out a task, you need to know how to manage the inputs that keep arriving.
\nThe focus shifts to the ability to accept a delegated task: precise rules that define boundaries and procedures before a task is considered assigned.
\nIf the real cause is something missing, what fills this gap are 2 operational solutions to apply in handling delegation inputs.
\nThe proposed solutions develop an execution method and, therefore, work on how delegation inputs are handled.
\nTo create a method for handling delegation inputs, you need to apply 2 solutions that are also rules to follow.
\nFirst of all, you need to ask yourself what the role of the person delegating is and whether the request falls within that role's prerogatives.
\nPersonal favors can sometimes be disguised as delegated tasks: the more favors are mistaken for delegation, the more confusion there is in the company.
\nWhatever doesn't concern the role, the duties or the function of the role is, to all intents and purposes, a personal favor.
\nThe common habit is to think of others as people rather than as roles, but there's a distinction to make here:
\nYou can't ask for personal favors every day.
\nClear agreements become necessary: specifying the role held, the role's functions and therefore whether or not it has the prerogative to delegate.
\nThis makes it possible to set the boundaries of delegation and clarify who does what and who can ask for what.
\nIt's essential to define a procedure that includes two points:
\nhow a delegated task is accepted
\nwhat information the delegate must request
\nBetween delegate and delegator, the more competent one must be the delegate: the delegate makes sure the delegator improves too, through a precise request for the information without which they couldn't begin carrying out the task.
\nWhen the process of accepting the delegated task ends, the delegate must have the clarity to proceed independently: that's why they must be the one to assess whether all the information is sufficient to carry out the task (if it isn't, the phase of collecting and accepting the delegated task isn't over).
\nMany delegated tasks fail precisely because the common focus is more on how to create a delegated task than on how to receive one.
\nFirst of all, the delegate defines which tool they use to accept delegated tasks: without this first choice there can be no method.
\nThen you need to define at what times (days/hours) delegated tasks are accepted.
\nTools and times: without defining these two points you can't establish how delegated tasks are accepted.
\nThe delegated task must make known and clear all the information the delegate needs to know before starting work. In particular:
\n1- which role the task is being delegated to (to distinguish between delegation and a favor)
\n2- final valuable product: what is expected to be produced by the delegated task
\n3- preferred deadline and reasons: important for defining the task's timing, it varies depending on the type of delegation (see next point);
\n4- who sets the schedule (a calendar of the activities that need to be carried out to arrive at the valuable product): does the delegator provide the schedule, or can the delegate decide the task's timing?
\nThere are 2 types of delegation:
\nTo have decision-making autonomy over the schedule of a delegated task, you need to know how to define the calendar: so the type of delegation depends on the delegate's skills.
\nThe most practical way to apply this solution, then, is to list the four pieces of information in a checklist and fill it in, when a delegated task arrives, by answering its points.
\nThis level of clarity and order in defining the delegated task makes it possible to manage the request and safeguard the worker's productivity.
\nTwo operational guidelines and simple rules of behavior that, if applied consistently, can produce immediate benefits and reduce issues that put the company's efficiency at risk.
\nEven the least visible problems can be solved in a lasting way through a method that starts from analyzing the causes and leads to concrete, applicable actions.
\nEurofound (2023) \"Right to disconnect: Implementation and impact at company level\", Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg — https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/en/publications/2023/right-disconnect-implementation-and-impact-company-level
\nDerks, D., van Duin, D., Tims, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2015) \"Smartphone use and work-home interference: The moderating role of social norms and employee work engagement\", Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 88(1), 155-177 — https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12083
\nBarber, L. K., & Santuzzi, A. M. (2015) \"Please respond ASAP: workplace telepressure and employee recovery\", Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(2), 172-189 — https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038278
\nPega, F., Náfrádi, B., Momen, N. C., et al. (2021) \"Global, regional and national burdens of ischemic heart disease and stroke attributable to exposure to long working hours for 194 countries, 2000-2016: a systematic analysis from WHO/ILO joint estimates of the work-related burden of disease and injury\", Environment International, 154, 106595 — https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2021.106595
\nPencavel, J. (2014) \"The Productivity of Working Hours\", The Economic Journal, 125(589), 2052-2076 — https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12166
","headings":[{"level":2,"text":"How the problems of busyness show up","id":"how-the-problems-of-busyness-show-up"},{"level":2,"text":"What the science says","id":"what-the-science-says"},{"level":2,"text":"What the effects of the problem are","id":"what-the-effects-of-the-problem-are"},{"level":2,"text":"The most common mistakes in solving the problem","id":"the-most-common-mistakes-in-solving-the-problem"},{"level":2,"text":"Where to look for the cause of the problem: analyzing the process involved","id":"where-to-look-for-the-cause-of-the-problem-analyzing-the-process-involved"},{"level":2,"text":"Identifying the real cause of the problem","id":"identifying-the-real-cause-of-the-problem"},{"level":2,"text":"The operational solutions","id":"the-operational-solutions"},{"level":3,"text":"Solution 1 — Clearly distinguish delegated tasks from personal favors","id":"solution-1--clearly-distinguish-delegated-tasks-from-personal-favors"},{"level":3,"text":"Solution 2 — Create a clear procedure for taking on delegated tasks","id":"solution-2--create-a-clear-procedure-for-taking-on-delegated-tasks"},{"level":4,"text":"How to accept a delegated task","id":"how-to-accept-a-delegated-task"},{"level":4,"text":"What information a good delegate asks for","id":"what-information-a-good-delegate-asks-for"},{"level":2,"text":"Sources and references","id":"sources-and-references"}],"tldr":"","tldrItems":null}