Employees Get 46% Less Focus Time Than They Need, Research Reveals

Forbes

2 days ago

Time to focus
getty
Modern work can be characterized by a level of busyness unseen in previous years. Our time can get snapped up by sitting in meetings, replying to emails, and responding to urgent requests. For anyone who has sat through a meeting you didn't need to be in, who was cc'd in a group email (for your reference), or feels frustrated by the lack of time to focus, think, and reflect, this article is for you.
The recent Microsoft Office Trends Report, sampling over 10,000 Microsoft Office users, revealed some alarming findings about how busy employees are at work. Employees are averaging 6.6 hours of overtime each week, attending 29.6% more meetings than they would like to, and are experiencing an average of 4.7 cancelled and rescheduled meetings per week. Even with working overtime, the results indicate that busy work is up, and focused work is down. Employees surveyed reported that they can access 46% less focus time than they report needing.
These statistics are heightened for leaders.
The C-suite spends, on average, 10.2 hours per week working overtime. This is 35.3% more overtime than the average employee and adds up to over 50 hours per week. Executives also attend the greatest number of meetings per week, at 11.5, compared with someone in a non-managerial role attending 8.2.
Focus time is the time needed for often independent work dedicated to achieving long-term goals or simply getting things done. When asked about challenges relating to scheduling, respondents ranked 'defending enough focus time to get stuff done' as the number one issue (63.9%), followed by managing and syncing multiple calendars (62.9%), and keeping schedules flexible to accommodate urgent changes (60.1%). Providing boundaries to protect work-life balance also featured in the list (47.4%, which is unsurprising when looking back at the amount of overtime workers are racking up each week.
Executives, managers, non-managers, consultants, and even students all reported attending more meetings per week than they indicated as their ideal number. This difference between ideal and actual meetings suggests that there is work to do to minimize unnecessary meetings.
This could be achieved by better delegation, by asking for higher order summaries and action items to be shared with a larger number following a meeting with only the crucial players, or with technology.
AI scheduling tools, such as Reclaim.ai, Calendly, or ClickUp Calendar, can help to automate scheduling, block time for focused tasks, and limit distractions by automatically coordinating schedules and aligning optimal windows in different time zones.
According to the report, employees spend an average of 4.2 hours per week just managing their calendars. Executives top this figure with 4.5 hours per week. In their average 50.2-hour work week, that equates to 9.1% of executives' overall work time spent on managing their own time.
Strategic thinking occurs when we dedicate time to the important, but non-urgent goals. If it constantly feels like we're putting out fires, when everything is urgent and reactionary, we don't have the time or focus to plan strategically for the big, longer-term goals.
While individuals can play a role in protecting their own boundaries, pushing back on unnecessary meetings, and adopting technological scheduling assistants, organizational cultural shifts are needed to stop this trend of busyness from collecting further momentum. Leaders can do this by role-modelling healthy work-life boundaries, encouraging staff to consider their own wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of their colleagues, and by allowing real time for focus by eliminating non-essential practices and procedures.