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Discussion on: How do you handle unproductive days at work?

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ben profile image
Ben Halpern

We have a policy that if you’re not feeling productive and it’s looking pretty hopeless that you’ll be productive in your last few hours of work, you should just say you’re not feeling productive and call it a day. No shame.

If you can bring up the idea to your team, I bet management could be okay with it if you present it the right way: An environment where it’s okay to not try and grind through the day, and instead save up energy for tomorrow.


Before I get to the point of calling it a day, I find switching up my music routine to be a good way to switch gears and become productive. 🙂

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6temes profile image
Daniel

Flex time is the answer.

You feel tired or not productive, go home after lunch.

You feel that you are "in the zone" and you don't want to leave? Continue working until late, and those extra hours will allow you to take afternoons off.

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Espoir Murhabazi

Thanks, @ben !

It's actually something all teams should consider.

it helps to work smarter and harder.

it reminds me of the 80-20% rule.

But how to present it in the right way to the management team?

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stilldreaming1 profile image
still-dreaming-1 • Edited

They may be more comfortable with this kind of thing if they start allowing trusted employees to do some of their work remotely. The reason is that, rather than take that time off completely, you can just make up the hours at a time when you are feeling better at home. You could even offer to track your time in a way they can see it. That could also help if the reason you are burning out is because you already put in extra hours somewhere, then you should be able to take off early at some point without having to make it up.

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Espoir Murhabazi

Thanks, @stilldreaming1 ,

The remote option is a fine especially when you have already built trust with your team and the management.

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still-dreaming-1

Trust leads to freedom, freedom leads to flaw exposure, flaw exposure leads to improvement or degression, improvement leads to trust, trust leads to freedom..

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Chad Smith

I love that idea but sadly more management groups than you think won't buy it. Would love ideas to present this to management.

I sadly work where they would say back "this is work, sometimes you have to do things you don't like." They will even say during crunch times if we step away from our computer: "back at it Can't be productive not on your computer"

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Forest Hoffman

That sounds like a healthy and realistic policy. 👏

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Jade Rickerts

I wish I could just tell management that I'm not feeling productive and call it a day. Here it's hard to get away from work without having a valid excuse like you're sick or you have an emergency at home.

One day I'll either work for a company like yours or be the boss of a company like yours. Hopefully the latter.