Why work doesn't happen at work | Jason Fried

1,107,476 views ・ 2010-11-24

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:16
So I'm going to talk about work;
0
16196
1690
00:17
specifically, why people can't seem to get work done at work,
1
17910
3786
00:21
which is a problem we all kind of have.
2
21720
2429
00:24
But let's sort of start at the beginning.
3
24173
2163
00:26
So, we have companies and non-profits and charities
4
26360
3606
00:29
and all these groups that have employees or volunteers of some sort.
5
29990
4944
00:35
And they expect these people who work for them
6
35458
3706
00:39
to do great work --
7
39188
1682
00:40
I would hope, at least.
8
40894
1342
00:42
At least good work, hopefully, at least it's good work --
9
42260
2715
00:44
hopefully great work.
10
44999
1237
00:46
And so what they typically do is they decide
11
46260
2048
00:48
that all these people need to come together in one place to do that work.
12
48332
3904
00:52
So a company, or a charity, or an organization of any kind,
13
52260
2975
00:55
unless you're working in Africa, if you're really lucky to do that --
14
55259
4164
00:59
most people have to go to an office every day.
15
59447
2233
01:01
And so these companies,
16
61704
1936
01:03
they build offices.
17
63664
1725
01:05
They go out and they buy a building, or they rent a building,
18
65413
2896
01:08
or they lease some space,
19
68333
1903
01:10
and they fill this space with stuff.
20
70260
2976
01:13
They fill it with tables, or desks,
21
73260
2976
01:16
chairs, computer equipment,
22
76260
2875
01:19
software, Internet access,
23
79159
3077
01:22
maybe a fridge, maybe a few other things,
24
82260
3245
01:25
and they expect their employees, or their volunteers,
25
85529
2581
01:28
to come to that location every day to do great work.
26
88134
2649
01:30
It seems like it's perfectly reasonable to ask that.
27
90807
2921
01:33
However, if you actually talk to people
28
93752
2333
01:36
and even question yourself, and you ask yourself,
29
96109
2644
01:38
where do you really want to go when you really need to get something done?
30
98777
3514
01:42
You'll find out that people don't say what businesses think they would say.
31
102315
3726
01:46
If you ask people the question:
32
106065
1497
01:47
Where do you need to go when you need to get something done?
33
107586
2816
01:50
Typically, you get three different kinds of answers.
34
110426
2474
01:52
One is kind of a place or a location or a room.
35
112924
2863
01:55
Another one is a moving object,
36
115811
1944
01:57
and a third is a time.
37
117779
1667
01:59
So here are some examples.
38
119470
2012
02:01
I've been asking people this question for about 10 years:
39
121506
3231
02:04
"Where do you go when you really need to get something done?"
40
124761
3156
02:07
I'll hear things like, the porch, the deck, the kitchen.
41
127941
3548
02:11
I'll hear things like an extra room in the house,
42
131513
3048
02:14
the basement,
43
134585
1277
02:15
the coffee shop, the library.
44
135886
1901
02:18
And then you'll hear things like the train,
45
138807
2555
02:21
a plane, a car -- so, the commute.
46
141386
3100
02:24
And then you'll hear people say,
47
144926
1712
02:26
"Well, it doesn't really matter where I am,
48
146662
2002
02:28
as long as it's early in the morning or late at night or on the weekends."
49
148688
3512
02:32
You almost never hear someone say, "The office."
50
152224
2825
02:35
But businesses are spending all this money on this place called the office,
51
155073
3572
02:38
and they're making people go to it all the time,
52
158669
2254
02:40
yet people don't do work in the office.
53
160947
2035
02:43
What is that about?
54
163006
1163
02:44
(Laughter)
55
164193
1460
02:45
Why is that? Why is that happening?
56
165677
3253
02:49
And what you find out is,
57
169353
1270
02:50
if you dig a little bit deeper, you find out that people --
58
170647
3388
02:54
this is what happens:
59
174059
1650
02:55
People go to work,
60
175733
1729
02:57
and they're basically trading in their work day
61
177486
2310
02:59
for a series of "work moments" -- that's what happens at the office.
62
179820
3492
03:03
You don't have a work day anymore. You have work moments.
63
183336
2683
03:06
It's like the front door of the office is like a Cuisinart,
64
186043
2778
03:08
and you walk in and your day is shredded to bits,
65
188845
2302
03:11
because you have 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there,
66
191171
2548
03:13
and something else happens, you're pulled off your work,
67
193743
2723
03:16
then you have 20 minutes, then it's lunch, then you have something else to do ...
68
196490
3889
03:20
Then you've got 15 minutes, and someone pulls you aside and asks you a question,
69
200403
3810
03:24
and before you know it, it's 5 p.m.,
70
204237
2196
03:26
and you look back on the day,
71
206457
1572
03:28
and you realize that you didn't get anything done.
72
208053
3031
03:31
We've all been through this.
73
211108
1357
03:32
We probably went through it yesterday or the day before, or the day before that.
74
212489
3803
03:36
You look back on your day,
75
216316
1414
03:37
and you're like, "I got nothing done today.
76
217754
2016
03:39
I was at work. I sat at my desk. I used my expensive computer.
77
219794
4590
03:44
I used the software they told me to use.
78
224408
2237
03:46
I went to these meetings I was asked to go to.
79
226669
2453
03:49
I did these conference calls. I did all this stuff.
80
229146
2697
03:51
But I didn't actually do anything.
81
231867
2369
03:54
I just did tasks.
82
234692
1152
03:55
I didn't actually get meaningful work done."
83
235868
2440
03:58
And what you find is that, especially with creative people --
84
238707
2936
04:01
designers, programmers, writers, engineers, thinkers --
85
241667
5569
04:07
that people really need long stretches of uninterrupted time
86
247260
3888
04:11
to get something done.
87
251172
1322
04:12
You cannot ask somebody to be creative in 15 minutes
88
252518
3428
04:15
and really think about a problem.
89
255970
1619
04:17
You might have a quick idea,
90
257613
1366
04:19
but to be in deep thought about a problem and really consider a problem carefully,
91
259003
3959
04:22
you need long stretches of uninterrupted time.
92
262986
2388
04:25
And even though the work day is typically eight hours,
93
265871
2702
04:28
how many people here have ever had eight hours to themselves at the office?
94
268597
3555
04:32
How about seven hours?
95
272176
1167
04:33
Six? Five? Four?
96
273367
3208
04:36
When's the last time you had three hours to yourself at the office?
97
276599
3152
04:39
Two hours? One, maybe?
98
279775
2022
04:41
Very, very few people actually have
99
281821
1715
04:43
long stretches of uninterrupted time at an office.
100
283560
2674
04:46
And this is why people choose to do work at home,
101
286258
3530
04:49
or they might go to the office,
102
289812
1579
04:51
but they might go to the office really early in the day,
103
291415
2635
04:54
or late at night when no one's around,
104
294074
1826
04:55
or they stick around after everyone's left,
105
295924
2068
04:58
or go in on the weekends,
106
298016
1414
04:59
or they get work done on the plane, in the car or in the train,
107
299454
3091
05:02
because there are no distractions.
108
302569
1905
05:04
Now there are different kinds of distractions,
109
304498
2195
05:06
but not the really bad distractions, which I'll talk about in a minute.
110
306717
3389
05:10
And this whole phenomenon of having short bursts of time to get things done
111
310130
4464
05:14
reminds me of another thing that doesn't work when you're interrupted,
112
314618
3642
05:18
and that is sleep.
113
318284
1185
05:20
I think that sleep and work are very closely related --
114
320031
3189
05:23
not because you can work while you're sleeping and sleep while you're working.
115
323244
3698
05:26
That's not really what I mean.
116
326966
1444
05:28
I'm talking specifically about the fact that sleep and work are phase-based,
117
328434
6071
05:34
or stage-based, events.
118
334529
1731
05:36
Sleep is about sleep phases, or stages -- some people call them different things.
119
336584
6055
05:42
There are five of them, and in order to get to the really deep ones,
120
342663
3834
05:46
the meaningful ones, you have to go through the early ones.
121
346521
2769
05:49
If you're interrupted while you're going through the early ones --
122
349314
3191
05:52
if someone bumps you in bed, or there's a sound, or whatever happens --
123
352529
3707
05:56
you don't just pick up where you left off.
124
356260
2000
05:58
If you're interrupted and woken up,
125
358284
1952
06:00
you have to start again.
126
360260
1738
06:02
So you have to go back a few phases and start again.
127
362022
3214
06:05
And what ends up happening -- you might have days like this
128
365260
2767
06:08
where you wake up at eight or seven in the morning, or whenever you get up,
129
368051
3548
06:11
and you're like, "I didn't sleep very well.
130
371623
2116
06:13
I did the sleep thing -- I went to bed, I laid down,
131
373763
2568
06:16
but I didn't really sleep."
132
376355
2378
06:18
People say you go "to" sleep,
133
378757
2366
06:21
but you don't go to sleep, you go towards sleep; it takes a while.
134
381147
3118
06:24
You've got to go through phases and stuff,
135
384289
2055
06:26
and if you're interrupted, you don't sleep well.
136
386368
2309
06:28
So does anyone here expect someone to sleep well
137
388701
2356
06:31
if they're interrupted all night?
138
391081
1582
06:32
I don't think anyone would say yes.
139
392687
1714
06:34
Why do we expect people to work well
140
394425
2325
06:36
if they're being interrupted all day at the office?
141
396774
2472
06:39
How can we possibly expect people to do their job
142
399270
2434
06:41
if they go to the office and are interrupted?
143
401728
2105
06:43
That doesn't really seem like it makes a lot of sense, to me.
144
403857
2907
06:46
So what are the interruptions that happen at the office but not at other places?
145
406788
3868
06:50
Because in other places, you can have interruptions like the TV,
146
410680
4261
06:54
or you could go for a walk, or there's a fridge downstairs,
147
414965
3271
06:58
or you've got your own couch, or whatever you want to do.
148
418260
3105
07:01
If you talk to certain managers, they'll tell you
149
421389
2809
07:04
that they don't want their employees to work at home
150
424222
2571
07:06
because of these distractions.
151
426817
1897
07:08
They'll sometimes also say,
152
428738
3031
07:11
"If I can't see the person, how do I know they're working?"
153
431793
2843
07:14
which is ridiculous, but that's one of the excuses that managers give.
154
434660
3301
07:17
And I'm one of these managers. I understand. I know how this goes.
155
437985
3257
07:21
We all have to improve on this sort of thing.
156
441266
2723
07:24
But oftentimes they'll cite distractions:
157
444013
1970
07:26
"I can't let someone work at home.
158
446007
1634
07:27
They'll watch TV, or do this other thing."
159
447665
2016
07:29
It turns out those aren't the things that are distracting,
160
449705
2735
07:32
Because those are voluntary distractions.
161
452464
1956
07:34
You decide when you want to be distracted by the TV,
162
454444
2452
07:36
when you want to turn something on,
163
456920
1691
07:38
or when you want to go downstairs or go for a walk.
164
458635
2394
07:41
At the office,
165
461053
1151
07:42
most of the interruptions and distractions
166
462228
2023
07:44
that really cause people not to get work done are involuntary.
167
464275
3117
07:47
So let's go through a couple of those.
168
467416
3111
07:50
Now, managers and bosses will often have you think
169
470551
3317
07:53
that the real distractions at work
170
473892
2004
07:55
are things like Facebook and Twitter
171
475920
2810
07:58
and YouTube and other websites,
172
478754
3170
08:01
and in fact, they'll go so far as to actually ban these sites at work.
173
481948
3842
08:05
Some of you may work at places where you can't get to certain sites.
174
485814
3341
08:09
I mean, is this China? What the hell is going on here?
175
489179
2619
08:11
You can't go to a website at work, and that's the problem?
176
491822
2743
08:14
That's why people aren't getting work done,
177
494589
2008
08:16
because they're on Facebook and Twitter?
178
496621
1928
08:18
That's kind of ridiculous. It's a total decoy.
179
498573
2253
08:21
Today's Facebook and Twitter and YouTube,
180
501557
3417
08:24
these things are just modern-day smoke breaks.
181
504998
2238
08:27
No one cared about letting people take a smoke break for 15 minutes 10 years ago,
182
507260
4015
08:31
so why does anyone care if someone goes to Facebook
183
511299
2618
08:33
or Twitter or YouTube here and there?
184
513941
2111
08:36
Those aren't the real problems in the office.
185
516076
2577
08:38
The real problems are what I like to call the M&Ms,
186
518677
3611
08:42
the Managers and the Meetings.
187
522312
2253
08:44
Those are the real problems in the modern office today.
188
524589
3389
08:48
And this is why things don't get done at work,
189
528002
2480
08:50
it's because of the M&Ms.
190
530506
1800
08:52
Now what's interesting is,
191
532330
2302
08:54
if you listen to all the places that people talk about doing work,
192
534656
3141
08:57
like at home, in the car, on a plane, late at night, or early in the morning,
193
537821
3964
09:01
you don't find managers and meetings.
194
541809
2131
09:03
You find a lot of other distractions, but not managers and meetings.
195
543964
3237
09:07
So these are the things that you don't find elsewhere,
196
547225
2977
09:10
but you do find at the office.
197
550226
1595
09:12
And managers are basically people whose job it is to interrupt people.
198
552631
3351
09:16
That's pretty much what managers are for. They're for interrupting people.
199
556006
3492
09:19
They don't really do the work, so they make sure everyone else is doing work,
200
559522
3839
09:23
which is an interruption.
201
563385
1724
09:25
We have lots of managers in the world now, and a lot of people in the world,
202
565133
3594
09:28
and a lot of interruptions by these managers.
203
568751
2101
09:30
They have to check in: "Hey, how's it going?
204
570876
2053
09:32
Show me what's up." This sort of thing.
205
572953
1884
09:34
They keep interrupting you at the wrong time,
206
574861
2158
09:37
while you're actually trying to do something they're paying you to do,
207
577043
3301
09:40
they tend to interrupt you.
208
580368
1403
09:41
That's kind of bad.
209
581795
1563
09:43
But what's even worse is the thing that managers do most of all,
210
583382
3111
09:46
which is call meetings.
211
586517
1447
09:47
And meetings are just toxic,
212
587988
2546
09:50
terrible, poisonous things
213
590558
3002
09:53
during the day at work.
214
593584
1419
09:55
(Laughter)
215
595027
1216
09:56
We all know this to be true,
216
596267
1787
09:58
and you would never see a spontaneous meeting called by employees.
217
598078
3221
10:01
It doesn't work that way.
218
601323
1261
10:02
The manager calls the meeting
219
602608
1728
10:04
so the employees can all come together,
220
604360
1915
10:06
and it's an incredibly disruptive thing to do to people --
221
606299
2723
10:09
to say, "Hey look,
222
609046
1190
10:10
we're going to bring 10 people together right now and have a meeting.
223
610260
3698
10:13
I don't care what you're doing,
224
613982
1492
10:15
you've got to stop doing it, so you can have this meeting."
225
615498
3007
10:18
I mean, what are the chances that all 10 people are ready to stop?
226
618529
3374
10:21
What if they're thinking about something important, or doing important work?
227
621927
3753
10:25
All of a sudden you tell them they have to stop doing that to do something else.
228
625704
3789
10:29
So they go into a meeting room, they get together,
229
629517
2719
10:32
and they talk about stuff that doesn't really matter, usually.
230
632260
3272
10:35
Because meetings aren't work.
231
635556
1644
10:37
Meetings are places to go to talk about things
232
637224
2166
10:39
you're supposed to be doing later.
233
639414
1697
10:41
But meetings also procreate.
234
641135
1971
10:43
So one meeting tends to lead to another meeting,
235
643130
2265
10:45
which leads to another meeting.
236
645419
1485
10:46
There's often too many people in the meetings,
237
646928
2206
10:49
and they're very, very expensive to the organization.
238
649158
2725
10:51
Companies often think of a one-hour meeting as a one-hour meeting,
239
651907
3125
10:55
but that's not true, unless there's only one person.
240
655056
2461
10:57
If there are 10 people, it's a 10-hour meeting, not a one-hour meeting.
241
657541
3524
11:01
It's 10 hours of productivity taken from the rest of the organization
242
661089
3277
11:04
to have this one-hour meeting, which probably should have been handled
243
664390
3339
11:07
by two or three people talking for a few minutes.
244
667753
2483
11:10
But instead, there's a long scheduled meeting,
245
670260
2539
11:12
because meetings are scheduled the way software works,
246
672823
2571
11:15
which is in increments of 15 minutes, or 30 minutes, or an hour.
247
675418
3401
11:18
You don't schedule an eight-hour meeting with Outlook; you can't.
248
678843
3643
11:22
You can go 15 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes or an hour.
249
682510
2974
11:25
And so we tend to fill these times up
250
685508
1974
11:27
when things should go really quickly.
251
687506
2159
11:29
So meetings and managers are two major problems in businesses today,
252
689689
3650
11:33
especially at offices.
253
693363
1159
11:34
These things don't exist outside of the office.
254
694546
2646
11:37
So I have some suggestions to remedy the situation.
255
697688
4801
11:42
What can managers do --
256
702513
1723
11:44
enlightened managers, hopefully --
257
704260
1976
11:46
what can they do to make the office a better place for people to work,
258
706260
3472
11:49
so it's not the last resort, but it's the first resort,
259
709756
2845
11:52
so that people start to say,
260
712625
1342
11:53
"When I really want to get stuff done, I go to the office."
261
713991
2777
11:56
Because the offices are well-equipped;
262
716792
1914
11:58
everything is there for them to do the work.
263
718730
2134
12:00
But they don't want to go there right now, so how do we change that?
264
720888
3261
12:04
I have three suggestions to share with you.
265
724173
2034
12:06
I have about three minutes, so that'll fit perfectly.
266
726231
2871
12:09
We've all heard of the Casual Friday thing.
267
729126
2837
12:11
I don't know if people still do that.
268
731987
1849
12:13
But how about "No-talk Thursdays?"
269
733860
1676
12:15
(Laughter)
270
735560
2032
12:17
Pick one Thursday once a month,
271
737616
2946
12:20
and cut it in half, just the afternoon -- I'll make it easy for you.
272
740586
3311
12:23
So just the afternoon, one Thursday.
273
743921
1730
12:25
First Thursday of the month, just the afternoon,
274
745675
2254
12:27
nobody in the office can talk to each other.
275
747953
2064
12:30
Just silence, that's it.
276
750041
1538
12:31
And what you'll find
277
751603
1633
12:33
is that a tremendous amount of work gets done
278
753260
2408
12:35
when no one talks to each other.
279
755692
1604
12:37
This is when people actually get stuff done,
280
757320
2064
12:39
is when no one's bothering them or interrupting them.
281
759408
2516
12:41
Giving someone four hours of uninterrupted time
282
761948
2961
12:44
is the best gift you can give anybody at work.
283
764933
2174
12:47
It's better than a computer,
284
767131
1413
12:48
better than a new monitor, better than new software,
285
768568
2754
12:51
or whatever people typically use.
286
771346
1975
12:53
Giving them four hours of quiet time at the office
287
773345
2404
12:55
is going to be incredibly valuable.
288
775773
1921
12:57
If you try that, I think you'll agree, and hopefully you can do it more often.
289
777718
3968
13:01
So maybe it's every other week,
290
781710
1722
13:03
or every week, once a week,
291
783456
1780
13:05
afternoons no one can talk to each other.
292
785260
2053
13:07
That's something that you'll find will really, really work.
293
787337
3087
13:10
Another thing you can try,
294
790448
2302
13:12
is switching from active communication and collaboration,
295
792774
3462
13:16
which is like face-to-face stuff -- tapping people on the shoulder,
296
796260
3191
13:19
saying hi to them, having meetings,
297
799475
1976
13:21
and replace that with more passive models of communication,
298
801475
2786
13:24
using things like email and instant messaging,
299
804285
2301
13:26
or collaboration products, things like that.
300
806610
2952
13:29
Now some people might say email is really distracting,
301
809888
2921
13:32
I.M. is really distracting, and these other things are really distracting,
302
812833
3570
13:36
but they're distracting at a time of your own choice and your own choosing.
303
816427
3572
13:40
You can quit the email app; you can't quit your boss.
304
820023
2808
13:42
You can quit I.M.;
305
822855
1778
13:44
you can't hide your manager.
306
824657
1817
13:46
You can put these things away,
307
826498
1738
13:48
and then you can be interrupted on your own schedule, at your own time,
308
828260
3381
13:51
when you're available, when you're ready to go again.
309
831665
2477
13:54
Because work, like sleep, happens in phases.
310
834166
2070
13:56
So you'll be going up, doing some work,
311
836260
2093
13:58
and then you'll come down from that work,
312
838377
1959
14:00
and then maybe it's time to check that email or I.M.
313
840360
2452
14:02
There are very, very few things that are that urgent,
314
842836
2501
14:05
that need to happen, that need to be answered right this second.
315
845361
3047
14:08
So if you're a manager,
316
848432
1175
14:09
start encouraging people to use more things like I.M. and email
317
849631
2984
14:12
and other things that someone can put away
318
852639
2016
14:14
and then get back to you on their own schedule.
319
854679
2201
14:16
And the last suggestion I have is that,
320
856904
3579
14:20
if you do have a meeting coming up,
321
860507
1729
14:22
if you have the power, just cancel it.
322
862260
3626
14:25
Just cancel that next meeting.
323
865910
1460
14:27
(Laughter)
324
867394
1166
14:28
Today's Friday, usually people have meetings on Monday.
325
868584
2645
14:31
Just don't have it.
326
871253
1162
14:32
I don't mean move it;
327
872439
1405
14:33
I mean just erase it from memory, it's gone.
328
873868
2642
14:36
And you'll find out that everything will be just fine.
329
876534
2588
14:39
All these discussions and decisions you thought you had to make
330
879146
3016
14:42
at this one time at 9 a.m. on Monday,
331
882186
1784
14:43
just forget about them, and things will be fine.
332
883994
2297
14:46
People will have a more open morning, they can actually think.
333
886315
2981
14:49
You'll find out all these things you thought you had to do,
334
889320
2775
14:52
you don't actually have to do.
335
892119
1453
14:53
So those are just three quick suggestions I wanted to give you guys to think about.
336
893596
3992
14:57
I hope that some of these ideas were at least provocative enough
337
897612
3025
15:00
for managers and bosses and business owners
338
900661
2106
15:02
and organizers and people who are in charge of other people,
339
902791
2816
15:05
to think about laying off a little bit,
340
905631
1871
15:07
and giving people more time to get work done.
341
907526
2135
15:09
I think it'll all pay off in the end.
342
909685
1810
15:11
So, thanks for listening.
343
911519
2002
15:13
(Applause)
344
913545
1659
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7