My personal productivity is related to how much time I spend alone
By: Kristen Sadler
Tags: People, Covid 19, Productivity, Time Management, Leadership

My personal productivity is related to how much time I spend alone

A lesson from covid 19: To boost personal productivity, it’s critical to balance the amount of time spent alone and time spent with others. Too much alone time reduces inspiration, and too much time with others robs us of thinking time.

When covid 19 isolation measures were announced in mid-March, one of the rare highlights was the possibility of having more time to work alone at home. Less travel, less pesky distractions and more focus — a recipe for success. Admittedly, I was already working from home with my advisor-author-speaker freelancing taking off. Still, I was looking forward to making good use of the time with plans to work on projects I’d been postponing for a while. I expected my personal productivity to soar and my output to get a huge boost.

A couple of weeks passed in a flash. I was dutifully sticking to my schedule and spending ‘work time’ actually working. But I realised that I wasn’t getting as much done as I’d hoped. Of course, there were a multitude of changes and unknowns due to covid 19 so I had re-jigged my own work expectations and goals. Yet I still wasn’t being as productive as I wished, my output hadn’t increased at all and in fact was below my normal productivity levels. It was around this time, in late March, that I was also really missing being around people: friends, family, colleagues, strangers in the street, and familiar faces in cafes and on running trails.

I started to wonder about how much the two points were connected — could the isolation be influencing and dragging down my personal productivity?

It didn’t make much sense at first because I already knew that spending *all* my time with others was my least productive state, and my output grew when I had time alone during the week. So I figured that more alone time would be even better.

What I was experiencing during isolation was the opposite: spending more time alone correlated with my productivity plummeting. (There are plenty of other factors that influence productivity, some are mentioned in the second last paragraph. For me, the amount of time spent alone was a major factor in the first weeks.)

I realised that, like all good things, I need ‘alone time’ in moderation. With carefully measured doses of ‘people time’ and ‘alone time’ I can hit peak personal productivity. I’ve created this Productivity Vs Alone Time graph to illustrate where the sweet spot lies:

Along the horizontal axis is the amount of time spent with people. If I’m always with other people, then I sit on the far left. Alternatively, if I’m always alone then I sit at the far right. Between the two extremes are those weeks when I’m spending some time alone and some time with others. The level of productivity is on the vertical axis. Low productivity is on the bottom end of the scale and super high productivity is at the top.

The relationship between ‘alone time’ and ‘productivity’ isn’t linear for me. Rather, it’s a bell-shaped curve. I’ve been asking friends and associates too, and the general consensus is that a balance is needed — spending too much or not enough time alone are the least productive places to sit. To sum up:

No time with other people = always alone = low productivity

No alone time = always with other people = low productivity

Sweet spot = some time alone + some time with other people = high productivity

The ‘sweet spot’ is where you have the right balance of alone time and time with other people which results in peak productivity. It goes without saying that spending time in the company of others is valuable and beneficial beyond our work. Fortunately, it can also have a positive impact on professional productivity because:

We can be inspired by the achievements of others.

New ideas spring to mind when we interact and share. (When we directly discuss our work and when we chat about other things.)

We collaborate and benefit from each other’s skills and experience.

Similarly, carving out ‘alone time’ during the week is professionally valuable because we can use it to:

Mentally sort and comprehend information.

Think about and plan tasks.

Perform tasks.

Reflect on the past.

I’m generally more productive when I spend most of my work time alone. My sweet spot sits towards the right, as shown below. A couple of hours a day interacting with others is perfect for me these days.

I’ve learnt that during the first weeks of covid 19 isolation there was an imbalance in how I was spending my time. I was outside my power zone and had too much time alone, this contributed to my productivity taking a nose dive. I need time with people to collaborate, be inspired and create new ideas. The exact amount can vary from week to week depending on my projects and tasks. Now I’ve recognised and corrected it, and I’m monitoring to make sure I get my weekly dose of people-time to boost my professional productivity (and my sanity).

You may also benefit from taking a few minutes to ponder about the amount of time you need to have alone and with others in order to reach your peak productivity, and whether you’re striking the right balance at the moment.

Personal productivity is a complex beast influenced by internal and external factors, both within and beyond our control. Working from home can boost factors such as the amount of sleep and leisure time, and having more control of one’s schedule. It can reduce the impact of dealing with toxic colleagues, or working in a toxic environment. On the downside, productivity can suffer due to being out of routine, having concurrent commitments, online meeting fatigue, and of course from dealing with the covid 19 unknowns.

If we underestimate the value of people-time and me-time on personal productivity and fail to find the right balance, the impact may be far greater than not completing projects on time. I thought having more time alone would increase my productivity. I learnt that there’s a threshold, then corrected my course and productivity is back on track.

Dr Kristen Sadler is an independent advisor, speaker and author. She combines a scientific approach with leadership experience and a multi-local perspective to explore the interfaces of emerging tech, exponential thinking, knowledge, truth and futures thinking. kristensadler.com