Sleep on it

Ideba works with clients nationally/globally, which often means that we schedule calls to take place outside of normal business hours – and for me in California, it often means starting my day early. Luckily, I’m hardwired to wake up early in any case. I get my best work done between 7:00 AM and Noon Pacific Time.

This is the point of my blog post today. What I have learned over time is that my ability to effectively do business-critical work diminishes throughout the day and has historically led to some late afternoon emails, that upon further review, could have been more concise and better phrased.

The suggestion I have to others who experience this is to learn how and when to stop working at the right time. Recognize diminishing returns on quality of work, versus how late you stay in your home office – and if you must scratch that itch of sending just one more email or finishing one more report – go ahead and do it, but don’t forward it to your client until the next day!

Try sending that email or deliverable to yourself first, and then taking 10 minutes (often less time is needed than that) to re-read the next morning before sending it on. I guarantee you’ll make edits to improve it, and your partners will be in a better position to react.

This works for me; but I certainly don’t want to discredit other workers who feel they do their best work at night. Finding work/life balance is a very personal process, so please let us know the routine you use in and out of your office, by leaving a note on LinkedIn and tagging us.

-Lee Sumner, Research Director