Trapping the Time Bandits

There’s probably a thief in your office.

Maybe several, actually.

You might even be one yourself.

At least, that’s the premise of Edward Brown’s new book, “The Time Bandit Solution: Recovering Stolen Time You Never Knew You Had.”

Brown, an efficiency expert and culture change management consultant, contends that office interruptions “steal” 40 to 60 percent of our time every day.

That’s three to five hours Brown says are wasted “by unwanted, unnecessary and completely unprofitable interruptions.”

As workplaces increasingly ask fewer people to do more work, capturing this stolen time seems essential to avoiding burnout.

“They (companies) try to get everything they can out of human resources they can barely afford,” Brown said. “It became so necessary to get people not to waste their time. Productivity became the solution, and we’re still fighting with it.”

It’s not an easy battle. As Brown writes, the time bandits in our work lives often are people critical to them: our bosses, co-workers, clients and even our families.

Read full article