A full schedule makes us less productive
A recent study shows that having a full schedule would compromise the ability to manage commitments effectively..
Over the course of a day, we come face to face with numerous temptations that, unbeknownst to us, alter our goals and plans for the day. An important factor in the pursuit of specific objectives for each day is motivation: how determined are we to achieve our goals? Another factor is the ability to resist the temptation to carry out activities that we know to be a waste of time: it is all a matter of self-control, to be exercised when we are faced with a choice.
One of the reasons why people set deadlines is to cope with procrastination and concentrate as many activities as possible in a limited time; with this type of strategy two distinct results can be obtained: optimization of activities or optimization of results. A strategy is particularly useful in maximizing the number of tasks that can be completed in a short time, but this will undoubtedly go to the detriment of results; productivity is not always synonymous with effectiveness.
Today, people feel the need to be occupied as much as possible, to the point that they aspire to have a busy schedule, rather than living a carefree and enjoyable life; this industriousness has even become a status symbol. In this regard, a recent Gallup Poll reveals that about 44% of Americans complain of "not having enough time" to complete their projects; wanting to do too much and not concluding anything can have negative consequences that result in stress, insomnia, and other unwanted effects related to physical and psychological health.
This phenomenon is becoming more and more common, to the point that people pride themselves on being busy, like it was fashionable. The point is that people think it important to do as many activities as possible, but most of the time they’re not up to it; this is why planning could be the best solution.
As described in the study "When an hour feels shorter: future boundary tasks contract the perception and consumption of time", we can distinguish two types of planning:
Intermittent planning: it is a type of organization in which a short interval of unplanned free time is left between one activity and another, where the efficiency of what one does is certainly scarce, since one is already projected towards the future action and not maximizing the present one;
Back-to-back planning: in this type of organization, the unplanned time interval between one activity and another is larger and consequently the performance will be better.
But when planning and completing tasks, there are two fundamental variations that affect our productivity,third-party deadlines and self-imposed deadlines.
It has been proven that we respond with a higher performance and punctuality to deadlines imposed by someone else rather than to self-imposed deadlines. If we think about it, we would much rather complete a task commissioned by our boss rather than going to the beautician within the week.
In any case completing certain tasks while setting aside things that we consider more futile is a choice; having priorities is essential not only in terms of performance but also in terms of time, which unfortunately we all tend to underestimate.
However, planning everything is not always a good thing. In May 2018, a research by Professor Tonietto of the Rutgers Business School, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, described through a series of experiments how people with many commitments / tasks planned tend to perceive the time they have left available as more limited than it actually is, and therefore complete fewer tasks. Moreover, these people tend to be less inclined to work on long tasks even if they’d be feasible in the time available.
In fact, when their schedule is full and there is a task that takes a long time, people tend to procrastinate and do it last, preferring the completion of simpler tasks such as making a phone call or organizing upcoming appointments or sending emails. Having a busy schedule can reduce productivity: too many deadlines and appointments make us less efficient in time management.
Specifically, the study cited consists of 8 tests that were carried out over 2 years from 2015, with 2,300 participants to whom the schedule was suddenly filled with appointments and things to do. One of these tests was carried out using the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTURK), a "labor" market managed by the Amazon giant. The test involved 200 subjects divided into equal groups between those who had a free schedule and those with a busy schedule. Everyone was asked to choose between a 30-minute task with a $ 2.50 pay and a 45-minute task with a $ 5 pay, with an hour's time to run it. People with full schedule felt like they had an average of 8 minutes less than their counterparts with a free schedule to complete the task.
Another test involved nearly 200 people who had been given 5 minutes of free time before an appointment when they had to do what they wanted, those with a full schedule completed an average of 1.8 tasks, while those with a free schedule and average of 2.3. The conclusion of the scientific study is that in order to optimize our work schedule we should leave the longer tasks to days dedicated to them, "without pre-established commitments", to avoid that sense of constraint that damages productivity.
In contemporary American culture, a busy man is synonymous with "ambitious man" who aims to have bigger capital. But things are changing because once a certain income is achieved, the worker will tend to work less. This phenomenon is referred to as "income effect" and implies that those with more free time will consequently have a higher social status and greater economic benefit. The result is that people who work longer are perceived to have a lower economic capacity and, therefore, being busy becomes a more unfavorable factor than before.
But a more engaged lifestyle may have detrimental effects on leisure time and entertainment, which can be undermined in different ways; having deadlines implies setting rigid times of beginning and end that must be respected. A remedy to not excessively affect one's free time is to not set numerous deadlines and reduce the start and end times; having some time for yourself is very important in order not to lose focus, remember that we are not machines.
I would like to conclude by quoting Seneca: <<It is not true that we have little time: the truth is that we lose a lot of it. We use time lavishly as if it cost nothing.>>
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