Deep Work

You’ve probably heard that the average person spends less than half of their workday doing work. A study conducted on almost two thousand British office workers revealed that the average amount of time spent productively each day is only 2 hours and 53 minutes (Vouchercloud n.d.). The respondents reported that most of their workday is spent on social media, reading the news, and socializing with coworkers or with people outside of the office.

But the other side of the story is that office workers have never been this stressed. Another British study showed that 90% of office employees experience a negative work-life balance because of stress (Workfront 2015). 42% of them report doing at least six hours of overtime per week.

Although our productivity is low, we feel overworked and pressured. The solution to this problem is multifaceted – for example, experiments with a shorter workday have generally had favorable results (DeMers 2017). Even when that’s not an option, you can improve your job experience by practicing better time-management.

But it is also a good idea to think about the quality of the work you do. The concept of deep work was developed for employees working on complex, creative tasks, and it can bring comprehensive positive changes to any career.