Every member of your team is unique and productive at different times. So why are you forcing them to work the same hours?

A recent study by the IZA Institute of Labor Economics evaluated 503,358 people and discovered the conventional work routine is not optimal. We are least productive in the morning and reach our peak at 1.30 PM. So why are we encouraged to start early, and eat lunch when we’re most productive?

According to Kristen Knuston (neurologist at Northwest University), our circadian rhythm dictates when we are most productive. For that reason, we all work best at different times.

Use this to help your team achieve a healthy work/life balance. Why expect your team to work eight hours, when they will only be productive for five? Instead, let them decide when they work by embracing “flextime.” 

On most flextime models, employees are free to work whenever. Provided they meet goals, deadlines, and weekly hour requirements. Rather than procrastinating, they can go out during their non-productive hours. So, they can still go to their child’s soccer game in the middle of the day.

Focus on Productivity, Not Hours

Time doesn’t equal productivity. Some employees need the full day to achieve results, while others only need a few hours.

Adrian Gostick (Forbes) reports a lot of employees work long hours to impress their leaders. But that doesn’t mean much. Most are only productive for three hours and procrastinate for the rest of the day. Best-selling author Adam Grant puts it best:

“In complex and creative jobs, it makes little sense to pay attention to hours at all”

 Rather than insisting they spend all day in the office, put a greater emphasis on productivity. Doing so will promote a healthy work/life balance. Provided they meet goals, they can then do whatever they want with the time they would usually be procrastinating.

By law, high-risk websites must work to protect your child. In the USA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act protects those under 13. It prevents a website from using features without a parent agreeing.

Club Penguin, for example, requires a parent’s email address for users under 13. The main “chat” is disabled until approval is made. COPPA also protects them in other ways. It requires consent before they can legally collect personal information and restricts what they can ask.

You should utilize this law by making sure your child’s accounts are associated with your information.

Tracking employee progress can be difficult. But a lack of direct communication could make it near impossible. If your team has a deadbeat worker who doesn’t care about the task, they’re going to feel less accountable when working from home. With no in-person reviews, they might think they can get away with less work.

Alternatively, if you have staff members you can’t trust – and have to frequently monitor their work – then without supervision, standards might slip. While at home, lazy staff might think their subpar work will go unnoticed.

For that reason, leadership strategist Brent Gleeson (Forbes) believes it’s essential that remote workers have daily check-ins. They’re an opportunity for you to set tasks, track progress and hear feedback. If someone is behind, you’ll quickly clock it. 

Not just any check-in. Lazy and deadbeat workers might try and hide behind emails or experience a diffusion of responsibility over text. So face to face video calls are crucial. There’s nowhere to hide, and employees will feel accountable for something if you directly ask them to do it. In-person chats are also a great way to build an emotional connection with your employees.

Set Rules for Engagement

Having rigid daily meetings isn’t realistic. When you’re in the office and have a question, you can walk over to your colleague and have an impromptu meeting. Or if something urgent comes up you just reschedule. For that reason, setting meetings at a certain time might not be beneficial.

On the other hand, not having any set check-ins might leave employees not communicating, and you in the dark about their productivity. For that reason, Gleeson recommends each manager defines their rules for engagement. His research indicates that doing so makes remote work becomes more flexible and efficient. It outlines expectations regarding frequency, means, and ideal times that everyone should be communicating.

For example, your team might have the following rule: “We have daily check-ins at 4 PM via Zoom, unless you’re with a client. In cases like these, you can send urgent matters via Slack.”

These clearly defined rules are a happy medium. They’re rigid enough to punish deadbeat employees who are too lazy to stay in touch, while simultaneously offering the same flexibility you have in the office.

The goal of perfectionism is to make your life and everything you achieve perfect. Rather than doing so, this logical fallacy (also known as The Nirvana Fallacy)  is making your life significantly worse for several reasons.

It Causes Productive Procrastination

According to Entrepreneur Aytekin Tank, when we obsess over analyzing what’s missing or broken, we can’t make real progress. When a task is done to an acceptable standard, perfectionists waste time on minor details, and their overall productivity suffers.

Perfectionists experience anxiety and stress over unimportant things. Nobody is perfect, and nothing you do will ever be faultless. Rather than moving on when the jobs done, they fixate on the negative.

Clinical psychologist Alice Boyes puts it best:

“Perfectionism is often driven by striving for excellence, but it can be self-sabotaging if it leads to suboptimal behavior like continuing habits beyond their usefulness, overdelivering when you don’t have to, or overthinking every decision you make.”

It Causes us to Avoid Challenges

Niki Hayatbini’s research suggests perfectionism stems from a deficiency in cognitive flexibility. This leads to all or nothing thinking; you either pass or fail, something is either perfect or it’s not. There is no in-between. Perfection is near impossible to achieve. With their cognitive inflexibility, most think that no matter what they do they will fail.

As a result, perfectionism leads to procrastination. When they think something is too difficult or impossible, they decide to put it off until later. Others avoid taking on challenges altogether, as they try to “win by not losing.”  

It’s Damaging to our Mental Health

Rather than appreciating the world as it is, perfectionism tells us to discount reality by comparing it to the “perfect world,” or an impossible standard. That can be extremely damaging to our mental health. Rather than stopping to relax and truly appreciate the world around them, perfectionists are constantly stressing over the imperfections around them.

When they fail to reach impossible standards, they are forced to adopt a number of defense tactics to save themselves from embarrassment. They try to push the task to the back of their mind. In the long run, this leads to a heightened level of stress and worry.

It’s no surprise that the World Health Organization links perfectionism with depression, suicidal thoughts, and a number of anxiety disorders.