Proof That Less Is More At Work

If you don’t know my story, I went part time at my job in October 2017 after exceeding my target financial independence net worth.  I’ve been periodically writing about my experiences with this new lifestyle both at work and outside of work. 

I realized however I’ve been doing more posts about my new free time.  I guess that’s natural, the free time from the constraints of a W2 is what so many of us dream about.  So it’s easier to focus on that aspect. 

I want to do an update about my W2 life, the one that I only have to deal with for 20 hours a week.  My last update about work discussed some of the annoying things I confronted early on in my part time experience.  Like annoying meetings and still being called “sir” even though I’m no longer in charge. 

When I wrote that last update, I hadn’t progressed enough on my new project to have anything to say about it.  Well, I have now. 

In a nutshell, in my last full time position as a senior manager I was in charge of about 70 people and a budget in the millions.  I had numerous big, enterprise-wide projects under my management and all of the stress and craziness that comes along with them. 

Now I’m working only one project.  I’m the project leader, but am not “in charge” of anyone from a supervisory perspective.  It’s hard to be a good supervisor when you’re only at work 20 hours a week. 

The project I work now is one that has been going on for a while, and was being worked in my previous office.  One of my former employees was leading it, and she was quite good.  But the project was relatively stagnant and moving slow.  I can’t get into details (I blog anonymously for a reason), but the project’s goal is not to deliver a final product or software program. 

For this project to have success, it’ll have to change the very culture of our agency.  It’s a massive effort that entails getting people to throw away old habits and biases about data and technology and to embrace new ones.  It’s what the folks who study these sorts of things call “organizational behavior”. 

Changing behavior and cultural norms in a large organization that’s been around for a while is hard to say the least.  It’s a game of influence and coalition building.  You have to get people on your side, and win them over.  You also have to run cross-organizational teams and get productivity out of people who don’t work for you. 

My revelation in the last 6 months is that being part time is the perfect thing for this role.

Figure It Out

Most weeks I’m in the office for two 10-hour days.  That’s it.  So sometimes up to a week can go by when I’m not around.  That’s leaves the more junior folks on the project without their leader, meaning me, very often.  That also means that on those days when issues come up and decisions need to be made, they’ve got to figure it out. 

And I’m finding they are, and they’re doing substantially better.  Yes, I worked all these years only to find out my colleagues do better when I’m put in charge of a project and don’t come to work very often.  I’m not sure what that says about me in the end but I’m going to run with it. 🙂 

I think the simple fact that a trusted senior leader isn’t around – the leader of the project – is allowing them to grab the bull by the horns and excel. 

You might be thinking, “well maybe this shows you were micro-managing when you were senior manager of the project previously”.  No, I’m positive that’s not it. 

We conduct “bottom-up” anonymous surveys every year and my employees always rated me high for not being a micro-manager.  I hate micro-managers, and my agency is rife with them.  I have a very hands off leadership style. 

It sounds silly but I think the fact that I’m physically not at work most days matters.  Perhaps it feels different to them knowing there’s no lifeline to call for that tough decision.  I’m not quite sure if that is the reason, but the difference in progress of the project and the obvious change in the performance of some of my colleagues is noticeable. 

Part Time = Ginkgo Biloba

Ginkgo biloba is supposed to help with mental focus.  I’m not sure if it does, but I can tell you that going down to 20 hours a week and only having one project to focus on sure does.  I’m still regularly astonished at the ADD atmosphere my former senior management position put me in.  It’s a wonder I got anything done in those days. 

Now I can focus at work.  What used to be a brutal and relentless fire-hose of emails is now a trickling faucet in comparison.  It’s glorious.  What used to be a cramped calendar that didn’t even have an open 15 minute window most days now has glorious white space.  Waiting to be painted like a canvas with activity and focused work. 

Needless to say my stress while at work is down, I’m more friendly to my colleagues, and I smile more.  The difference is night and day.  All of those things come back in a circular fashion and allow me to be more productive on my project.  It’s a positive, self feeding do-loop.

If you’re on the fence about full FIRE and you have the possibility of doing it, definitely consider asking to go part time.  Semi-retirement won’t solve all of your problems but it just might make all of them more manageable. 

Also check out “Essentialism” by Greg McKeown.  It’s one of my favorite books and has tons of tips to simplfy both your work life and your life in general.

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