Optimizing Office Work Schedule
For more than 14 years I’ve been working as a designer and a web-developer. 3 years ago I’ve decided to switch and become an iOS developer. Finally, 6 months ago I started working as an iOS Developer in a bank.
Office schedule is not a big deal for me. Despite of being self-employed for many years — I love to work and to produce. What I hate — is to waste time. Traffic jams, long way to office, no time for family and personal projects, no time for sports.
What is important to know about me, is that I live in Kyiv on the other side of Dnipro river (in respect to the city downtown). I have a pretty young daughter. I have some individual projects (like being a head of Ukrainian Flying Disc Federation, etc.).
New office work appeared to have some problems:
- our office is almost in the city downtown but with no close subway stations;
- I have to go across the whole city if I choose to go by car;
- we use scrum to organize working process, so we have stand-up meeting each morning starting at 10:00–10:10.
But what is important for me: I quit being a manager, and besides some meetings my work is almost independent of other employees. So, I can start my day at time I prefer and define my schedule as I would like to.
Numerous experiments were carried out. This is the first schedule I had and tried to optimize:
Regular Schedule: The Problems
Transport
We have really heavy traffic in Kyiv. It is especially severe in the morning, when everybody goes to work, and in the evening, when people go home. This period is shown in my diagram. If I go by car during this range it takes ~1 hour to arrive at work and then — an hour to arrive at home.
Public transport does not make it possible to save time, but still I can read books while traveling in our subway.
Stand-up
The evil part of the scrum process. It obliges to be in office on time. It intrudes into your mind. It requires concentration.
Having it at 10:00 each morning makes senseless to arrive at work in range of 9–10:00, because you won’t achieve flow and won’t do anything significant.
What is important to understand too, is that because of the scrum — one’s “productive” work starts with communication. Your mind focuses on your report and reports of other colleagues. So, when you finally start to work — your brain is already filled with useless information.
No time for family
As you can see, having such a schedule I arrive home at 20:00 tired and hungry. And my little daughter is about to go to sleep in 2:30 hours. So, I do not have too much time to spend with her and be really cheerful and careful.
I still have about an hour before sleep to read or to watch something, but usually it is not possible, because I am sleepy already after a fairy tale for my daughter.
Main Ideas to Optimize
Have as Much Flow as Possible
Being a developer means to perform tasks, which require concentration. The most productive state for any intellectual worker is called “flow”. It is a state of mind, when one is entirely focused on current task and her productivity is several times higher, than in usual state.
Flow was very important for me, being a designer. It was like an “inspiration” to perform better. But being a developer requires flow to be “a must” state to perform complex tasks.
Of course one can work “outside” the flow, but I am sure she can’t perform complex tasks and overall productivity will suffer.
Flow is not very easy to achieve:
- one should be concentrated on a task with no external irritants;
- at least ~15 minutes will pass until you “dive” into this state.
At the same time it is very easy to break: by colleague, who wants to talk, by meeting, etc.
To have maximum productivity means to have as much flow, as I can. It can be achieved by having long-lasting periods of non-interrupted work. Which means:
- to avoid meetings and conversations;
- to avoid small breaks.
Decrease Travel Time
Public transport cannot be optimized, because it operates by its own schedule. So, the only option to decrease travel time is to go by car, but avoid heavy traffic.
One option is to go after rush hours. But it’s impossible to arrive at the beginning of stand-up meeting. And I will arrive home even later and won’t see my daughter at all.
The other option is to go before rush hours. It requires to get up really early, usually before sunrise. But there are numerous benefits, one of which is possibility to watch the dawn.
Work While Family Sleeps
Thanks God I need less hours of sleep in comparison to my wife and our kid. For me ~7 hours is enough, while they prefer ~9 hours.
I can use these two excess hours for work and have two hours more with my family, if I shift my schedule accordingly.
There’s an obvious solution to achieve all of this: just get up earlier!
Optimized Schedule: Benefits
Finally I have my own Optimized schedule, which works fine for me. This is it in comparison to the “Regular” one I had.
What has changed now is that I have a simple task each morning: get up and start my trip to work not later than at 7:00. I prefer to start at 6:45.
Being such an early bird allows me to have a trip just of 25 minutes: there is almost no traffic in Kyiv.
I arrive at the office at 7:15 or maximum at 7:30.
In 15 minutes my flow begins.
Until the stand-up meeting at 10:00 I have 2:30 hours of extremely productive work, because:
- there is no noise in the office;
- nobody’s at work, nobody wants to talk;
- no tasks and discussions before the work started;
- my mind is clear: no external information — everyone is asleep.
Normally I perform up to 50% of the whole day scope and the most complex tasks, spending just a 30% of working time.
The second easy task is to leave work before evening rush hours. It means to leave at 16:15–16:30. If I miss this “window of opportunity” — I’ll spend the same 1 hour as in regular schedule.
Our client and my colleagues all already know, that I go home early: they do not set up meetings for me after 16:00.
The most difficult part here is to break flow and interrupt interesting task, which is almost finished :)
Trip home takes more time, because Kyiv usually has heavy traffic all day long. So, I spend up to 45 minutes.
Finally, I’m home.
And this is the most important part of my story. Having a full-time work usually means to have qualitative time with family only on week-ends. But not for me any more.
I usually arrive at home at 17:00–17:15. My daughter is still in the kindergarten, if she went there. I have 1–1:30 hours for my house duties or own projects in this case. Otherwise we can go for a walk or spend time together at home.
In summer and autumn I even had a couple of hours to recreate on the beach with my family, while everyone is still in the office or on their way home.
In brief, I have 5:30 hours of time for myself and my family in the evening. And it is the time, when my mind is still productive. So, I can be cheerful and careful with my wife and my daughter.
Conclusions
Benefits are obvious. But let’s summarize them:
But…
“I am not an early bird. I can’t get up that early.” Bullshit. It is just the result of your lifestyle.
Of course if you prefer night clubs and watching TV series before sleep — you won’t do. I by myself had different working schedules. Once I had a schedule, when I started to work at 11:00 and continued until 23:00. And it lasted for years.
To get up early you have to fall asleep early. That’s all.
