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.

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The Useful Commute Interview with Mark Ellwood

Administrative tasks are not acknowledged in other analyses of managerial time, but are an unavoidable reality of work. In our time study consulting, we define administrative tasks as those that do not advance work toward achieving major objectives.. Instead, they are necessary requirements of the job. They might support the operations of the organization, such as filling out time sheets, reports, and paperwork. They might support the dissemination of information, through internal, non-planning meetings. Or they might support other workers, providing assistance by answering questions or filling in for others. Or they might be activities that could be delegated entirely to an assistant, to another department or to technology, with no changes to the manager’s performance.

In one of our questionnaires, managers are also asked “What things, outside of your control get in the way of your productivity?” Since we began asking the question in 1990, the issue of paperwork and administrative tasks continues to lead the responses to this question across all job categories. For managers and non-managers alike, the percentage is the same.  20% of respondents cite administration as an impediment. See Table 4 below for responses to the second open-ended question cited by more than 4% of managers.

The irony is that since 1990, computers and new software programs continue to proliferate; yet there is no reduction in administrative tasks. This is because for the manager, the computer is not an automation tool; it is an information-processing tool. With the increasing number of tools, or programs available, from word processing to spreadsheet analysis and presentation software, the options have also increased. Now, more scenarios can be checked out, more reports can be printed for review, more data needs to be inputted. It is no surprise then that the issue of paperwork and administrative tasks is seen as a huge impediment to productivity.

As shown in the table below, the administrative burden is massive and takes up 11.6 hours of the manager’s work week. This is 25% of his or her time. The activities in this category are also very interruptive; 43 of them occur each week lasting 16 minutes each.

Administration is also an area where managers would like to spend considerably less time than they do. Actual hours spent versus ideal expectations are the most dramatically different for this category compared to others. Managers spend 11.6 hours in administration time, but would ideally only like to spend 7.3 hours doing these activities. No one likes doing paperwork.

Administration time increases as one moves higher in the organization (see table below). Some of the time in this category is simply staying in touch through networking, writing and responding to e-mails or communicating with head office. Nonetheless, even when communication activities are excluded (some of which are routine and some of which are people management), administration for presidents is still 11.7 hours per week or 18% of the time.

How do you keep your administration time to a minimum? Please leave your comments and I will summarize them in another post.

These included all of the non-value added e-mails that employees need to sort through; internal announcements, queries from co-workers, items forwarded fyi, meeting confirmations and others.

Across a broad number of knowledge workers, these miscellaneous e-mails added up to 3.9 hours per week, much more than the 2.4 hours that employees said they would ideally like to spend on these. Those with activities outside of the office face a larger burden; 4.5 hours per week for field supervisors and 6.2 hours per week for sales reps. Remember: there is a lot more time spent on value-added emails – this is just the “stuff.”

Many of these e-mails are avoidable. Employees find themselves overwhelmed by dozens, if not hundreds of e-mails per day. Curiously though, while everyone complains about the volume of incoming e-mail, few will admit to being the culprits for sending it out.

Remember, if you send out one e-mail and copy twenty people, you have in effect sent out twenty e-mails.

Employees can make better choices to control their incoming e-mail.

• Take yourself off distribution lists.
• Avoid the use of the Reply All function.
• Stop saying “Thanks”. Fellow workers already know that you are an appreciative colleague.
• Ask subordinates not to copy you without including a cover note
• Unsubscribe from newsletters that are really extended sales pitches
• Don’t try to persuade someone through e-mail. Use a phone or meeting instead.
• Keep your messages short. Avoid telling stories.