Taking A Break Is Good - Deepstash
Making Remote Work, Work

Learn more about timemanagement with this collection

How to create a productive workspace at home

How to balance work and personal life while working remotely

How to maintain focus and motivation while working remotely

Making Remote Work, Work

Discover 32 similar ideas in

It takes just

4 mins to read

Taking A Break Is Good

Taking A Break Is Good

Some alternatives for busywork: Assigning the worker meaningful tasks or opportunities for growth that often gets put on the back burner, such as training.

A great way is to let employees take a breather. Numerous studies have proven the benefits of taking regular breaks during the workday. Among them are reduced stress and improved focus, creativity and productivity – all positives for employees and their organisations. 

18

58 reads

MORE IDEAS ON THIS

Employees Know They Have To Look Busy

Employees Know They Have To Look Busy

It is not just managers who equate industriousness with good performance, however. One study showed knowledge workers spend an average of 41% of their time at work on self-assigned busywork that could be delegated to others, in order to appear busier and more important at work.

Online, the ...

19

59 reads

Busywork Leads To Burnout

Busywork Leads To Burnout

When remote workers are putting in increasingly long hours, piling on endless busywork will have the opposite effect. The primary risk is that employees burn out and their mental wellness is impacted.

This Great Resignation is the result, in part, of exhausted people who are not ma...

21

57 reads

Breaking The Cycle

Breaking The Cycle

Apart from giving meaningful work, another approach is to give teams autonomy, which is motivating and creates a virtuous cycle, where people want to do a good job.

Managers need to think harder about the kind of tasks they are handing out. The idea is to keep employees bus...

21

53 reads

Wasting Countless Hours

Wasting Countless Hours

In the long-term, frequently assigning tasks designed primarily to keep workers occupied can damage the relationship between managers and their workers. 

It can be very demotivating to the remote employee. It's a sign of lack of trust and lack of care. The real tragedy of busywork is in the...

19

55 reads

Giving Work To Maintain Control

When higher-ups doubt employees’ work ethic, one solution is to micromanage their time with an endless list of tasks to keep them chained to their desks – even if some of those tasks are pointless.

Managers may not even know if an employee has finished their core work, but they are giving ...

19

60 reads

The Bottom Line

Ultimately, managers who feel caught in a cycle of assigning busywork should take a step back and think more broadly about what their managers want from them – rather than scrambling to keep people busy.

They're probably looking for you to generate good results and, hopefully, retain peopl...

19

52 reads

The Management And Downtime: Keeping Workers Busy For No Reason

The Management And Downtime: Keeping Workers Busy For No Reason

When employees are on the clock, most managers expect them to keep busy throughout the workday. This may mean either completing tasks within their remits or finding ways to make sure their hands are in some work-related project. Even when workflows deliver some downtime, the message from manageme...

20

138 reads

Busywork

Busywork

The Busywork might include compiling a pointless report, colour-coding a spreadsheet or proofreading a presentation that has already been checked.

One 2016 study of 600 knowledge workers showed they spent just 

21

114 reads

Controlling The Worker Bees

Controlling The Worker Bees

Part of the busywork problem is some managers equate busyness with productivity. 

The perception is not just that a busy worker is engaged and making an effort, but even that their industriousness gives them a higher moral value than their less busy colleagues. This sets up a dynam...

19

93 reads

Managing The Lull

Managing The Lull

Some managers report lulls in work during remote set-ups have made employees uneasy. These managers start to assign busywork just to ensure that workers don't feel a void, and remain occupied.

But assigning too much busywork to mitigate guilt might mean swapping one set of negative feelings...

19

60 reads

Remote Work And The Eroding Of Trust

Remote Work And The Eroding Of Trust

Remote work has, in some cases, exacerbated this pressure. When employees first switched to remote work, many managers found the inability to visually monitor their employees unsettling. In the immediacy of Covid, bosses felt that if they couldn’t see employees working, then they weren’t working....

21

66 reads

The Problem With Old School Organizations

The Problem With Old School Organizations

The Busywork problem is heightened in organisations where work culture dictates that managers operate in a more traditional, authoritative style, discouraging autonomy among employees.

In these organisations, managers may also feel under pressure from their own superiors to prove that thei...

20

78 reads

CURATED FROM

CURATED BY

ethho

I wish I knew about the 80/20 rule much earlier.

Stop giving superficial and useless work to employees just to keep them busy.

stash-superman-illustration

Explore the World’s

Best Ideas

200,000+ ideas on pretty much any topic. Created by the smartest people around & well-organized so you can explore at will.

An Idea for Everything

Explore the biggest library of insights. And we've infused it with powerful filtering tools so you can easily find what you need.

Knowledge Library

Powerful Saving & Organizational Tools

Save ideas for later reading, for personalized stashes, or for remembering it later.

# Personal Growth

Take Your Ideas

Anywhere

Organize your ideas & listen on the go. And with Pro, there are no limits.

Listen on the go

Just press play and we take care of the words.

Never worry about spotty connections

No Internet access? No problem. Within the mobile app, all your ideas are available, even when offline.

Get Organized with Stashes

Ideas for your next work project? Quotes that inspire you? Put them in the right place so you never lose them.

Join

2 Million Stashers

4.8

5,740 Reviews

App Store

4.7

72,690 Reviews

Google Play

Shankul Varada

Best app ever! You heard it right. This app has helped me get back on my quest to get things done while equipping myself with knowledge everyday.

Sean Green

Great interesting short snippets of informative articles. Highly recommended to anyone who loves information and lacks patience.

Ashley Anthony

This app is LOADED with RELEVANT, HELPFUL, AND EDUCATIONAL material. It is creatively intellectual, yet minimal enough to not overstimulate and create a learning block. I am exceptionally impressed with this app!

samz905

Don’t look further if you love learning new things. A refreshing concept that provides quick ideas for busy thought leaders.

Ghazala Begum

Even five minutes a day will improve your thinking. I've come across new ideas and learnt to improve existing ways to become more motivated, confident and happier.

Giovanna Scalzone

Brilliant. It feels fresh and encouraging. So many interesting pieces of information that are just enough to absorb and apply. So happy I found this.

Laetitia Berton

I have only been using it for a few days now, but I have found answers to questions I had never consciously formulated, or to problems I face everyday at work or at home. I wish I had found this earlier, highly recommended!

Jamyson Haug

Great for quick bits of information and interesting ideas around whatever topics you are interested in. Visually, it looks great as well.

Read & Learn

20x Faster

without
deepstash

with
deepstash

with

deepstash

Access to 200,000+ ideas

Access to the mobile app

Unlimited idea saving & library

Unlimited history

Unlimited listening to ideas

Downloading & offline access

Personalized recommendations

Supercharge your mind with one idea per day

Enter your email and spend 1 minute every day to learn something new.

Email

I agree to receive email updates