Andrew May poses the question ‘What does the perfect week look like?’. Is it an 8 day week, if you had an extra day what would you do with it? Apparently 63% of Australian workers are sleep deprived... (not me since I got my new sleep cycle app for my iphone). It is much harder to be productive, let alone enjoy what we do if we are perpetually tired.
Running from one thing to the next, never having time to be creative or think - means that we are always being stretched to peak performance. But no one plays at peak 16 hours a day every day.
Apparently the average person working in an office gets interrupted every 4 minutes (80-100 times a day) yet it takes 25 minutes to really focus on a task. Does that mean we are actually going backwards or that we are not giving our undivided attention to the task at hand?
85% of Australians feel that life is getting more and more hectic. All these labor saving gadgets actually just mean we do more.
Andrew had some great thoughts about how to reduce this problem:
- break the email addiction
- learn to have fleeting meetings
- create energy management
- master mindfulness
- forced isolation
Now you might want to read his book ‘Flip the Switch’ to discover what he means by all of these. But I was particularly interested in the notion that I have a stimulus response addiction to email (a bit like people who play the pokies for days/nights on end seeking instant gratification from the push of a button) Alarming to compare it...
Here are his seven email ideas...
- Turn off email pop up alerts (and sound)
- Schedule times that you check it (not morning - start the day on what you want to work on not responding to others)
- Give up email tennis (talk instead)
- Unsubscribe to anything you don’t read or want to get.
- Never write a thesis (it is a short message medium)
- Refrain from using BCC
- Get a great spam filter
He suggests he can save an hour a day (which is a lot of time in a week, month or year). I have taken on 6 of his suggestions.... but I still find myself drawn to go back... Sometimes I'm the initiator of the 'need' to email or I worry that there might be an urgent missive that I must attend to. I do find that I am much quicker at dealing with all the emails at once, you don’t dwell on them so much. The fact that I even feel this means that I know that it is an addiction.
It took me a week to go cold turkey and give up coffee - it might be a bit longer with this one.
Thanks Andrew for your insights last week at the Talent2 conference.


Conflict is not all bad.
People sometimes think that being a part of a best place to work means that it is party time all the time. That’s not the case. Sure we work hard and play hard, but really what we do is challenge each other to greatness. We know that to be challenged can also be truly rewarding.
It says somewhere in the bible that a ‘good wife’ will debate and challenge her husband so he can see what he cannot see. I think this is the basis of all partnerships or even leadership teams. If we keep playing it safe, living in our comfort zone then how can we ever possibly create something bigger than ourselves?
There are more people in the RedBalloon team than it once was, and I don’t necessarily have the same moment-by-moment contact with each individual that I used to. As a result I rely heavily on the team leaders around me to deliver on the vision, the passion and the commitment to our people.
Having differences of opinion, viewing the world differently, holding the mirror up so we can see how we are really performing is all healthy. When there is fundamental respect for each other, then challenges are seen as growth opportunities.
Why this sudden outburst, to announce that conflict can be constructive? RedBalloon is coming into planning for the next financial year, resources need to be allocated and there are always differences of opinions. As long as the process is respectful of each individuals opinions then even after a ‘full on’ conflict – we can all still come back to a place of alignment and harmony.
Being an employer of choice is challenging, steadfastly committed to keeping everyone aligned – even if it takes lot’s of energy and many different points of view. It does mean never giving up and knowing that near enough is good enough, just to appease someone (or be nice…) it is not fair to the rest of the team to leave a debate unchallenged.