This’ll be a fairly quick post. I came to a good, but slightly worrying conclusion this weekend: by far and away my best working day, is… Saturday.
It’s probably my most productive day of the week, and I still have time spare, in the evening, to go out. I can absolutely blitz work on a Saturday.
It’s not hard to work out why. I love being in contact with people – clients, friends, contacts alike – but the constant interruptions, from various sources, break up the flow of work.
It’s great to receive a call – it might be about work, or maybe changes to be implemented in a second draft – but, if you were mid-task before that call, it’s not as easy as just cracking on with what you were doing. It usually takes a little time to refocus.
… then there’s the ‘ping’ of a new email. Often you pray it’s just spam or a response to a tweet, but, more often than not, it’s a request that involves looking at a website, reading through things, then sending a carefully considered response.
Again, it can be hard to refocus after this.
I’ll also have multiple tabs open, including social media, with various messages pinging back and forth all day. Some of them spark a thought, some of them are even business-related, but most are just silly comments.
Don’t get me wrong – I’d rather be busy than not. Without calls and emails I wouldn’t have any work, and no-one can go through the working day without these interruptions, but …
…Saturday has become pure bliss: my phone is largely silent, emails are down to the odd one or two, and there isn’t the same level of activity on social media.
I can get my head down and work for hours, completely uninterrupted.
And my worst day of the week? That’s got to be Friday. By 2pm I’m distracted and so is everyone else. That’s when I get calls, emails, and messages on social media that don’t really relate to anything … because everyone else is distracted, too.
So that’s me: what are your best and worst working days?