Time Study Consulting

Patterns Of Procrastination Among Students

We just launched a beta version of www.BuddyHive.com. It is a cool web site that allows people to buddy up with each other and be accountable in getting stuff done. It’s perfect for those struggling with procrastination. And fun because you never know who you’ll meet. (Give it a try!)

We’re testing different ways to promote the site. So, in seeking out those who were experiencing time management challenges, I went to Twitter on a recent Sunday night and searched using a procrastination hash tag. A hash tag is added to a tweet to indicate a subject. I was able to find all the tweets where people had specifically included the word “procrastination.”

To my surprise, the floodgates opened! Hundreds of students in a few hours, confessed to not doing their studying, or not making any progress on school projects. Some couldn’t even start packing for upcoming trips. I was surprised at how Twitter has become an on-line confessional.

Procrastination seems to be a particular challenge for students. My web designer, who is close to that age, suggested that students often face a massive block that is extremely difficult for them to overcome. Some do, and perhaps they are the ones who graduate from college successfully.

By watching the tweets throughout the week, one can see patterns of activity.

In the middle of the week, tweeters are reasonably nonchalant,

“Since 2pm, I’ve stared at blank manuscript, ate a mars ice cream, watched TBBT, & learned how to whistle and hum together.”

Or:  “Still haven’t started my homework, well I guess it’s time for a shower.”

Then by Friday night, with the entire weekend stretching ahead of them, students are optimistic that they can eventually get to their school work.

“I always wait for Sunday to do my homework, procrastination at its best.”

And on Saturday night, there is still time: “Should I do my homework tonight? Pshh hah no thanks.”

But then on early Sunday evening, with only a few hours until an assignment is due, they express worry that they might not get it all done.

“I wait until the last minute to do EVERYTHING. “

“Damn… definitely just starting my history children’s book! Due tomorrow…. and have had 2 weeks to do it!”

“History paper due in 12 hours and I haven’t started yet.”

Then, late Sunday night, many are prone to resignation, doubt, and self-loathing. They realize that time is just about up, and they are in a precarious situation with little to show for all their distractions.

“Should have started this psychology before the day it was due!”

“Can’t focus on this homework.”

“I’ve got to stop doing this to myself.”

Few celebrate their successes. The majority use Twitter as a confessional. And almost none reach out for help. They will often confess to what’s distracting them; “My senior paper may as well be on twitter and Facebook, because it seems like that’s all I’m doing. “

Most tweets seem to be written by high school students, because  “homework” is a popular topic. One would not expect to hear this quite as much among college or university students. Among that group, essays and papers need to get done, not homework.

Another curious item, noted around March break, is the difficulty people have with getting ready for travel, particularly packing:

“Leaving in 6 hours, haven’t begun to pack yet.”

“It’s seriously not setting in that I’m moving in 11 days. I need to start packing. “

Clearly putting things off is a huge challenge for this group. As one of them put it, “I’m a big fan of procrastination, or as I like to call it, postponed time management.”

They need to set goals, they need discipline, and they need accountability. That’s why we built www.BuddyHive.com.  They need it.

Productivity Hurdles

What really bugs people about productivity? We conduct time and motion studies using our proprietary electronic TimeCorder device, gathering thousands of hours of real-time data from employees.

We like to complement the time study results with additional data, so we often provide employees with a brief questionnaire prior to beginning a study. One of the questions asks: “What things, outside of your control, get in the way of your productivity?”

The idea of this question is that some productivity inhibitors such as procrastination are within employees’ control. Some are outside their control. Or apparently so. It’s our contention that many of these hindrances can in fact be managed by employees through better time management training. Nonetheless, employees often believe productivity is spinning out of control through no fault of their own.

The most popular responses to the question are listed below. Read more »

Procrastination Definitions

In the coming weeks, I’ll be launching  www.BuddyHive.com.  It inspires people to get stuff done by randomly connecting buddies who become accountable to each other for achieving small tasks, usually within a week.

In the meantime, here are a number of defiintions of procrastination. Do any of them fit?

• To voluntarily delay an intended course of action despite expecting to be worse off for the delay – Piers Steel
•  The intentional and habitual postponement of an important task that should be done now. – Harold Taylor Read more »

Unproductive Hours at Work

The world of work is massively unproductive. Or so reported a Microsoft survey from 2005 that a colleague recently sent me. While a few years old, time study data doesn’t tend to shift much over short periods – the data is still relevant. The survey was based on input from 38,000 people from 200 countries.

In the survey, employees reported work hours of 45 hours per week. This closely matches data from our own time and motion study projects from the last 22 years. Our data shows the average work week is 47 hours, including breaks.

The key finding from the Microsoft study that causes alarm is that employees consider about 17 hours per week to be unproductive. That’s more than a third of the work week!

Some of the common “productivity pitfalls” that were reported include unclear objectives, lack of team communication, ineffective meetings, unclear priorities, and procrastination.

Microsoft is in the technology business, and no doubt a couple of its survey questions were designed to support its mission. Sure enough, 55 percent of respondents said they relate their productivity directly to their software. Not surprising. But wait. That leaves 45% who relate productivity to something else. Whatever that is, it is not about technology. It’s likely that employees are thinking about soft skills that enable them to run better meetings, overcome procrastination, set priorities, and enhance other time management skills.

Those are the skills that get overlooked. An on-line service called Google Trends shows relative search volumes over the past few years – what terms people are interested in. A search on “training” shows a decline from a score of 1.5 in 2004 to a score of about .75 in late 2011. Meanwhile “smart phone” skyrocketed from 1.0 to over 2.0 between 2009 and late 2011. Clearly, smart phones today have a greater appeal than training.

Yet what if everyone who lined up for hours to buy the latest version of a smart phone spent their money on training instead? Something needs to be done to address all those unproductive hours. As we study the use of time, our data confirms that employees are not becoming any more productive in achieving their highest priorities than they were twenty years ago. Much has improved about how we do our work, but there is farther to go. Do we need the latest app? Or should we invest in new training methods to improve personal productivity?

The Perils That No One Predicted

Microsoft has produced a film that portrays the world of work a few years from now. I remember seeing one of these from 1990 – a bright cheery world of the future where a woman talked to a computer in her car while the computer arranged meetings and prepared presentations. At the time I wondered if the world of the future would match the utopian vision. Well, the future has arrived, and it isn’t always pretty.

The reality is quite different. For instance, our work measurement studies show that employees spend 3.2 hours per week reading miscellaneous emails that have nothing to do with their main activities. And many employees spend 30 minutes per week fixing technology problems.

The film omits these and other technological glitches that are part of daily life. When it comes to time management, technology can often hinder as much as it can help. Consider this list of hassles that no one predicted:

• Spam
• Voice mail jail
• Unnecessary emails
• Dropped cell phone calls
• Unwanted telemarketing calls
• Car crashes caused by texting
• Drained batteries
• Ringing phones at movies
• Phone interruptions at restaurants
• Broken web site links
• Computer viruses
• Costly smart phone apps
• Expensive downloading costs
• Identity theft
• Billing problems from service providers
• Help desks that offer no help
• Inadvertent pocket dialing
• Hackers
• Blackberry service interruptions
• Social media obligations
• Advertising everywhere

If the world of today includes all of these things that no one predicted twenty years ago, then the world of the future is just as likely to be fraught with frustrations.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s what will make life interesting.

Feel free to add comments with your own hassles.

Four Seconds of Silence Lost Forever

Want to hear the shortest radio program on the air? It’s onCanada’s CBC Radio just before 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. A few seconds before the hour, you’ll hear a countdown consisting of  a series of short beeps from the National Research Council, followed by a period of silence, then a long beep, marking 1:00 p.m. A deep-voiced announcer provides the commentary, short as it is.

Now, about that period of silence. A while back, the gap between the last short beep and the long beep was ten seconds. That’s what the announcer said. “The beginning of the long dash, following ten seconds of silence, marks 1:00 p.m., eastern standard time.” And during those ten seconds, nothing happened. No commercials. No light music. No ticking. Just silence.

But in May of this year, quite suddenly, the silence was shortened. There is no longer a ten-second void between the end of the short beeps and the beginning of the long beep. Now, it’s just six. Yes, only six seconds to savor a quiet, uncluttered, noiseless universe. It doesn’t take a sophisticated time study to conclude that four seconds have been lost forever.

Why the change? More time for radio programming perhaps. But what’s the rush? In our push to speed things up, to squeeze out every bit of valuable time, what happened to silence? Where did the time go for reflection, for calm, for thought?

So now it is time to take back your time. The next time you get a chance, perhaps right now, just take a moment. Better yet, take ten moments. One after the other. And do nothing. Don’t feel the urge to fill the silence with noise. Just sit. Wait. Contemplate. Listen. And enjoy the silence.

Your time is worth it.

(You can hear the old version of the countdown here: )

http://archives.cbc.ca/science_technology/technology/clips/5772/