I thought I’d write for you a mini-series about the decision to work part time in professional services. It heavily overlaps with the Deep Work topic, so I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.
If you have any questions, email me at chrismarr@hey.com.
I’m not sure how many parts there will be…perhaps I’ll continue it for 6 months or so as I go beyond the decision and document the experience.
There’s a lot that went into this decision - to go from working full time, 5 days a week, to part-time, 3 days a week. Many discussions, with many people.
Now, instead of an average of 21 working days in the month, I’ll only have 13.
24 hours a week, instead of 40.
It’s not a lot of working time when you think about it.
And this is one of the major reasons I choose to make this change - less available time creates a clear constraint and boundary. It forces me and the people I work with to think more deeply about the work I should be spending that time doing.
At this stage in my career I want to be very deliberate about the work I do and do my best work yet. I don’t want to end up doing many things at a mediocre level.
I’m only a few days into this new experience and it’s paying out already - I’m expected to focus on the work that only I can do. I’ve already turned down a few projects, because I simply cannot do them.
So, if this goes the way I think it will, I’ll only being doing the work that ONLY I can do, and everything else will have to be done later, or by someone else, or simply not done at all because it’s not that important.
I wonder how much work is getting done by people that’s simply not important? Probably more than we’d care to know!
The future is looking like me only doing my most valuable work, and that’s something to get excited about!
DFTBA!
Chris.
If you have any questions, email me at chrismarr@hey.com.
I’m not sure how many parts there will be…perhaps I’ll continue it for 6 months or so as I go beyond the decision and document the experience.
There’s a lot that went into this decision - to go from working full time, 5 days a week, to part-time, 3 days a week. Many discussions, with many people.
Now, instead of an average of 21 working days in the month, I’ll only have 13.
24 hours a week, instead of 40.
It’s not a lot of working time when you think about it.
And this is one of the major reasons I choose to make this change - less available time creates a clear constraint and boundary. It forces me and the people I work with to think more deeply about the work I should be spending that time doing.
At this stage in my career I want to be very deliberate about the work I do and do my best work yet. I don’t want to end up doing many things at a mediocre level.
I’m only a few days into this new experience and it’s paying out already - I’m expected to focus on the work that only I can do. I’ve already turned down a few projects, because I simply cannot do them.
So, if this goes the way I think it will, I’ll only being doing the work that ONLY I can do, and everything else will have to be done later, or by someone else, or simply not done at all because it’s not that important.
I wonder how much work is getting done by people that’s simply not important? Probably more than we’d care to know!
The future is looking like me only doing my most valuable work, and that’s something to get excited about!
DFTBA!
Chris.