Time is the most precious commodity that we have and in order to be continually productive, we have to stop doing some of the dumb things that we’ve all fallen into the bad habit of doing. We have to protect our attention and productivity with some new habits.

In my book Culture Hacks, I provided 26 ideas for you to try to not only claw back some time, but also elevate your thinking and the range of techniques available for consistently delivering great work. I wanted to start 2022 by adding to this list and to encourage those that still conform to some of the dumb cultural norms (emails, meetings, endless Powerpoints etc.) to do something differently this year.

What continually holds workplace cultures back is not a lack of ideas, but a lack of people willing to implement them. I haven’t come across a person in the last three months who hasn’t told me that the number of emails they receive, the number of meetings they attend, isn’t sustainable. Yet when I ask them what they’ve tried, there’s often a shrug of the shoulders and a sense of ‘well, that’s just the way things are’. Take it from someone who proactively challenged these cultural norms many times, it doesn’t have to be!

Pick one idea to improve your productivity or that of your team, implement it, stick to it, review it (to make sure it’s adding value) then talk about it so that others can do likewise. Not everything will work for every individual or every team, but people will be inspired by your courage, discipline and creativity and follow suit. These first few followers should be embraced as equals and instilled with a sense of ‘I’ve done this, so you can do it too’ and before you know it, they’re passing the ideas on as well and in 3-6 months, you’ve collectively moved the dial on the culture of the department or organisation.

These lone nuts (as Derek Sivers referred to them in his excellent Ted Talk) are the culture catalysts within organisations around the world and all they did was have the courage to do something differently. 

So, here are three ideas to add to those that I outlined in Culture Hacks (which you should also read!):

1) Block out time for your job

I know, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, but most people are rubbish at actually planning their days and weeks. They let other people fill their precious time with low value meetings and activities and then they wonder why they end up working evenings and weekends. In these scenarios it’s easy to blame others when, with a little discipline around planning and being protective of productive time, this encroachment on personal time can be avoided. 

The last action you should take on Friday (and you need to block out time to do this) is to look at your priorities for the following week and block out the time you need to complete them. I’m not talking about blocking out full days (unless that’s what it will take), I’m suggesting that you estimate how much time you’ll need, block it out of your calendar and then don’t let anyone put anything in over this time.

The end of every day should then be spent likewise for the next working day, so that you go to bed at night knowing exactly what needs to be done, safe in the knowledge that you have the time to do it. And if you don’t, then you have to decline or delegate other work to ensure that you can get your job done.

2) Agree how you’ll use the tools

One thing the world has proved over the last two years is that we have the technology to maintain connectivity and productivity when people aren’t in the same space or time zone. Sure, they all work in slightly different ways, but when you take the time to learn how to use them properly and agree what you’ll use for what purpose and when - it’s a cultural game changer.

The thing is, very few organisations implement the tools in the right way and even if they do, managers don’t take the opportunity to bring their teams together to agree how they’ll use them and before you know it, everything is a Microsoft Teams video call where the expectation is that everyone’s camera is on all of the time.

The start of the year is the perfect time to agree how you’ll collaborate with each other and what mechanisms you’ll use to do so. What can be a phone call? What can be a text message? What needs to be done face-to-face or camera-to-camera? How will you use email? The whole exercise takes less than an hour (I know, I run these regularly for clients!) and it removes all confusion on ‘how’ work will get done.

3) Implement a ‘maximum meeting time’ rule

And finally… seemingly the biggest problem of all, the misuse of face-to-face time. For those who don’t have an issue with meetings, well done. You don’t need to read any further, but you do need to share with others how to do it well and create more lone nuts within your organisation. For everyone else, here’s an idea: set a maximum amount of time for meetings in any week and stick to it.

Before you start this process, you should also stop doing 30 and 60 minute meetings. It’s lazy and you’re letting Microsoft Outlook dictate the time you need for information sharing and decision-making, rather than taking control of this yourself. Every interaction should be 20 and 40 minutes instead and not only will it remove the waffle that happens in meetings, it’ll also provide you with extra time to be productive.

Once you’ve done that, as a team you should agree on a maximum amount of meeting time in the week and hold yourselves accountable to that. Two hours a day is three 40-minute interactions or six 20-minute interactions and when you factor in lunch and breaks in the morning/afternoon, that will leave you with at least four hours of productive time to do your job. That’s 10 hours of meeting time in a week and that’s plenty! Start there.

Of course, you can do what you’ve always done and tell yourself what’s not possible, but where’s the fun in that! Start the year differently and take control of your productive time. I’d love to hear from you about things you’ve done that have worked or else how you get on when you implement these!