Are you getting late to go home every day?

Lal Fonseka Productivity Consultant, - Brandix Lanka Limited

During my 25 years long working life, I have come across only a single occasion where an organization was getting the assistance of security personnel to lock the main entrance of the office sharp at 7pm.

This happened mainly because of some people who worked in this office had a habit of continuing to work very late after office. The office was supposed to close at 5pm, but at least a couple of people could have been seen in their seats even after 7pm.

By noticing the weakness of these personnel, the company management took the above decision to close the main entrance involving the security personnel since they failed to understand the importance of having good relationship with their family members after office hours.

The practice adopted by the security personnel was to make round inside reminding officers who were found to be still working 10 minutes before locking the main entrance to move out of the office before 7pm.

For you, this may be a strange incident as you have not come across such a situation in your life time. But this is a real life experience. However, I am a strong believer that all the working people should leave their work sharp on time and at the same time, they should make it to a point to report to work at least five minutes before the usual start up time. Though this is the ideal situation every organization expects to happen, it is not happening in majority of our organizations.

How would you like to leave work by 5 pm, today and every day after? Depending on your workplace, that may not quite be possible. But we can all be more efficient with our daily tasks, says Julie Morgenstern, author of Never Check Email in the Morning. Whatever the answer you may end up, leaving the office exactly at the closing time will help your career as well as the overall happiness.

Consistent day schedule is a key to good overall performance. Personally, I try to stick to a schedule (which is easier if you have kids that you need to drive to school/daycare and pick up later). I decide how to split my work so it fits into my schedule and gets done on time. From my experience disorganized people not only screw up their day, they screw up the days of everyone working with them and do not get the things done on time and with appropriate level of quality.

There is no doubt, with the extraordinary stress of today’s workplace, creating a vibrant personal life is one of the best investments you can make in your work.

I saw a large board displayed in the exhibition Centre of the Toyota Motor Corporation in Nagoya, Japan years back stating “Today for Tomorrow”. This is the message they give everyone who visit the Centre not to procrastinate the current work you are handling. If you postpone something you do today for tomorrow, it will be a major crime.

As was stated above, though day schedule is a key to good overall performance, while this schedule will help you finish as much as possible on your day schedule, push yourself to leave when you can -- regardless if every last small task is tackled.

If you follow the schedule, you will spend exact time at the office -- and leave by 5, or as close to it as possible:

Especially women will work as efficiently as they did when they had babies in childcare.

Babies cannot stay late at childcare without totally ruining your evening in one big baby meltdown.

But, apart from that, babies in childcare tend to catch every passing illness, so you never know when you will get ‘the call’ to say you have to drop everything and take your little one home. One such woman remarked as follows. “At the time of my life when this was a daily reality I had a very clear strategy to handle it. Every morning as I scanned my to-do list I would pose the following question.”

“If the childcare Centre calls and I have to leave immediately, what unfinished task(s) on this list will prevent me from going?”

If it happens, what she would do first - without fail? It was a ruthlessly efficient way to prioritize. And it meant she could get my work done and still finish in time to collect my babies at 4.30pm.

It is needless to say that the children get older - and more resilient to disease - the need for such ruthless prioritization and efficient completion of work will begin to fade.

How can we create discipline to balance both activities without harming both parties?

There are six suggestions to help you get out the door at a reasonable time at the end of the working day.

1. Have a reason

On the days when you know you must stop work and leave at a certain time, you usually manage it. The reason is usually some kind of family commitment - school or childcare pick-up, a family appointment, etc.

* What can you identify that would be a compelling enough reason for setting a hard deadline for leaving work?

* Is any appointment fixed at the gym?

* Do you need to beat the rush hour traffic?

* Do you have enough time to get the dinner cooked?

* Are you having any commitment to help children with their homework?

It does not matter what it is, so long as it feels compelling enough for you. If need be, make a commitment to someone else that you will be at a certain place by a certain time after work. This will hold you accountable.

2. Prioritize

During your working day, examine every task in light of your commitment to leave at your appointed time.

What tasks - if not done - will prevent you from leaving? Get them done first.

3. Focus and get it done

If possible, try to tackle these tasks early in the day when you are fresh, and before any ‘crisis’ erupts to distract you. If your program doesn’t allow for this - got to love those morning meetings right? - try to get on with them as early as you possibly can. First hour of the day is titled as the golden hour by some of the factories in the apparel industry in our country.

Keep working on them until they’re done. If you get interrupted, get straight back onto them as soon as possible. Remember - just get them done. These tasks are what stand between you and getting out the door.

4. Leave if you have done enough for the day

For most knowledge workers, it can be difficult to identify when our work for the day is finished. If you have not worked on high priority tasks earlier in the day, then you may find as the day draws to a close you know you are not finished yet because these tasks are not done.

However, once you are managing to set your priorities and completing the can’t-leave-until-they’re-done tasks earlier, it might be more difficult to tell when you’re finished. There’s always more work you can do, right?

If you are working to the best of your ability throughout the day - and meeting your deadlines - then when your leaving time arrives, you’re done.

Don’t question this. Don’t compare your leaving time to that of others. Don’t second guess yourself. You are done.

You just need to give yourself permission to leave, confident in the knowledge that you are on top of things.

5. Have an understanding with your boss and colleagues about your leaving time

Coupled with the need to give you permission to leave is the need to train your boss and colleagues to accept your departure time.

Of course from time to time there are emergencies and you will need to stay late at work. This happens to all of us - no matter how well organized we are. This is when you break out the emergency procedures - cancelling evening commitments, calling on your spouse or a friend to collect your children, and so on. You probably already have your own set of such procedures.

However, if everyone is confident that you can and will pitch in for a genuine emergency, this will go a long way towards reassuring your colleagues that you are not leaving them in the lurch.

Interestingly, I have found that when you - and those around you - become accustomed to you leaving at a particular time something amazing happens. People begin to plan around you. Those late-in-the-day emergencies tend to be brought to your attention earlier. Things that cannot wait suddenly become things that would actually be fine to wait until the next morning - especially if you’re in early and able to respond before your colleague arrives for the day.

6. Remember tomorrow is another day

Finally, as you are getting ready to leave - knowing there is still more to be done - remind yourself there will be time to work again tomorrow. The next lot of urgent tasks you see looming can be the ones you decide to make your highest priority jobs the next morning.

Take a deep breath and go home.

I will wind up this article with the following important point quoted by Morgenstern for your attention.

Keep your to-do list organized

“People who haphazardly write lists on stray notepads, Post-Its, and backs of envelopes wastes time wondering what to do next and worrying that they are forgetting something. Choose only one tool (planner, notebook, smartphone) to track everything you need to do, and prioritize from the top down,” Morgenstern suggests. That way, you will spend 100 percent of your time completing your to-do list, not finding it.

Bonus tip: Conquer the largest and most important tasks first, to make sure they get done (then, if you’re running short on time, you can do things that don’t need doing until tomorrow....tomorrow).