Instead of the whole day, you have only a few moments at work to do your job. If you think about it, you will realise: "I was at work. I sat at my desk. I used my expensive computer. I used the software they told me to use. I went to these meetings I was asked to go to. I did these conference calls. I did all this stuff. But I didn't actually do anything." This is how entrepreneur Jason Fried began his TED talk entitled Why work doesn't happen at work at the TEDxMidWest 2010 conference. He tries to appeal to everybody who truly cares about productivity.
Jason Fried is a co-founder of the software company 37 signals which develops web-based tools to increase productivity, including the popular framework for convenient and rapid development of modern web applications called Ruby on Rails. He is also co-author of a book entitled Rework, which describes new ways to "do less and create more".
M&Ms are to blame
"Managers and bosses will often have you think that the real distractions at work are things like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and other websites, and in fact, they'll go so far as to actually ban these sites at work," says Fried, "The real problems are what I like to call the M&Ms, the Managers and the Meetings." He describes the work of managers by saying that "they don't really do the work, so they have to make sure everyone else is doing the work, which is an interruption." Meetings are not work either: they only force people unnecessarily to stop doing their work and start doing something completely different. So how to make working more effective?
In his speech at the TEDxMidWest 2010 conference, Jason Fried suggested three options. The first was to try "no-talk Thursdays": once a month organise a Thursday afternoon when nobody will talk. "What you'll find is that a tremendous amount of work actually gets done when no one talks to each other."
The other two tips are focused on disruptive communication with colleagues and on meeting organisation. Together with the whole video, you can listen to them at http://www.ted.com/talks/jason_fried_why_work_doesn_t_happen_at_work.
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