Three Reasons We Can’t Be Trusted to Set Our Own Work Schedules, and What to Do About It

We are bad at estimating the time it will take to accomplish a task, as we don’t take into account our distractions, procrastination, emergencies or delays.

To counter the planning fallacy, we need to assign blocks of time which are called ‘slacks’ by behavioural scientists that act as buffer time between the scheduled tasks. Several hours of slack time added will ensure that the work is done even if it spills over the scheduled time.

The modern workplace has an old and obsolete indicator that is still followed: time-based work measurement. Longer hours still means better work and more dedication.

Work From Home has introduced flexi-hours for many of us, and people are working close to 14 hours a day over the laptop or phone.

With a flexible schedule, there is always more to do and nothing to signal that you’re done, because of a lack of visual cues. Sending an email at ungodly hours only adds to the cognitive load of the recipients.

For a potential solution, perhaps a good place to start is creating a work culture that discourages work email and communication in the evenings and on weekends so that even flexible work has some boundaries.