Give work less time

I work in an operationally heavy job, where there are always multiple things demanding my attention at once. My colleagues reach the office by 8:30 AM and leave around 9 PM. (Yes!!!, that’s more than twelve hours a day).

Along the way, this became the norm for the team. It got to the point where even on days with no real work, people stay back, just to look like they put in twelve hours.

Without ever deciding to, I internalized it: I have to be at my desk till 9 PM.

Then one day I had a show booked for 6 PM. So I wrapped up and closed everything before leaving, and that was the striking moment. All these months I had been finishing the same work at 9 PM that I was perfectly capable of finishing by 6.

I wasn’t working till 9 because the work needed it. I was working till 9 because I had 9 PM to work with. That day, I only had until 6, so that’s when it got done.

Zoom out, and it’s a pretty important realization: work expands to fill the time available for it. The more time you believe you have, the more time the work will take.

The fix isn’t working harder. It’s creating the urgency yourself, instead of waiting for a show ticket to do it for you. Otherwise, we keep postponing, extending, and calling it dedication.