I only made one formal resolution this year:
Stop going to the office so damn early.
Since my last promotion, I have been in the office well before 7 a.m. almost every morning.
The long hours were a great way to get acclimated to my new job, but I hit a point of diminishing returns sometime in November.
One day on the way to work I thought, “What the hell am I trying to prove by showing up this early?”
I realized that there is no special reward for plowing through all of my emails before most people wake up.
Being in the office really early never feels weird. Our corporate campus is open 24/7, so there is always a group of people around, regardless of the time.
My long hours also reminded me of law school in a bad way – in law school, there’s always that guy who makes a point of logging more time in the library than anyone else.
That guy is universally viewed as a jerk, and never had the best grades.
I don’t want to be “that guy.”
So, this year, I still wake up at the same time, but I go to gym instead of going to work early.
There are still many after-hours phone conferences and late nights completing workflow, so this isn’t quite the same thing as that “work-life-balance” crap that most people talk about.
The first few times this felt extremely weird, but I quickly realized that nothing important happens in my inbox before 8 a.m.
No one noticed (nor cared about) my new start time, and I still arrive before most of the department. The majority of my department works from home 4 days a week anyway, so the notion of a “start time” is probably outdated…
Upcoming: Deep Work
My next project is scheduling out some time for the “deep work” that Cal Newport talks about on his blog and in his book.
The gist is that most office workers are comfortable doing “shallow work” like keeping their inbox clean while ignoring the energy-intensive work which is ultimately more important for career growth.
Ignoring my inbox for an hour each day makes me squeamish, but it will probably be as painless as arriving to work a little later (or spending less time in the law library).
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