notes to self

The New Look of Working

cubicle17:

I’ve heard some ridiculous chatter around the office recently about how some people “obviously aren’t working because they don’t spend enough time at their desks”. While it may have been true in the past that employees were working only when they were sitting in their desks with their heads down for 8 hours a day, that simply isn’t true anymore. These days working looks markedly different…

These days working looks like staying at home so you can get more done with less distraction. It looks like walking around the office so you can talk to your colleagues face-to-face instead of through e-mail. Working looks like taking a break every hour so you can remain focused over an entire day. Working looks like a day without meetings, and looks like eating lunch somewhere other than your desk. It looks like leaving two hours early because you’re ahead of schedule. Working even looks like spending the weekend doing what you want to do, not spending it in the office.

One thing that working does not necessarily look like, however, is busy. After all, the only real way to tell if someone is working is by their results, and that’s how it should have been all along.