The Intermediary – May 2025 - Flipbook - Page 72
B RO K E R B U S I N E S S
Opinion
Stop all
the clocks
Y
ears ago, I worked with
AOL on an experiment
at HQ in London. They
stopped all the clocks,
meaning employees
would have no easy
access to clocks for the day.
We wanted to discover: what effect
will this have on their perception of
time? How will they feel? How will it
change the way the work gets done?
What will it do for stress?
Consider the impact of time. Most
adults have watches, computers and
phones continually measuring the day.
All our lives we have been surrounded
by a time structure: four-hour feeds,
sleeping through the night, school
days, lessons in 40-minute periods,
work from nine to five. Time has been
minced up and spoon-fed to us.
Our bodies naturally follow
cycles, and it’s hard to change the
fundamental forces upon us. Whether
we consider ourselves owls or larks,
experiments have established that we
are all more alert and accurate in the
morning, with performance falling
off as the day progresses. By evening,
though we may get a second wind, we
will not perform at our peak.
Although the importance of time is
not new, over recent years the speed
of life has changed dramatically.
Our expectations – and those of
employers – have become increasingly
unrealistic. Widespread job insecurity
has led to pressure on the employee to
work longer and longer hours, leaving
insufficient time for all the other
demands and joys of life.
In addition, until the pandemic
struck, the average Brit travelled
six-times as far every day as they did
in the 1950s. You can understand a
reluctance to go back to a five-day
commute. Is our hurry-sick behaviour
actually productive, or should
watching the clock be replaced by
listening to our own senses?
Research by Management Today
shows that only a third of British
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The Intermediary | May 2025
managers feel they have the time to
enjoy the money they earn. Five out of
six feel stressed at work. Half do not
have time for relationships
Pulling off a difficult proposal
or project within ridiculous time
restraints can be exhilarating,
especially if you then head off to
celebrate with your colleagues.
Nevertheless, if every minute of every
day is lived like this, the effects can be
isolating and motivation reducing.
Time for innovation
Worse still, when people are under
intense time pressure of their own
or others’ making, they cease to
be creative, and they fail to spot
opportunities. Today, the only factor
likely to put you ahead of your
competitor is innovation.
A time-obsessed team overlooks the
fact that quantity is easy to calculate –
quality and creativity are much harder
to measure.
Time can be elastic. When you take
a long weekend, it can feel like you
have been away for a week. Every day
is made up of so many different parts.
We seem to be able to fit so much in.
It must be about the freshness and
AVERIL LEIMON
is co-founder
of White Water Group
the novelty and the relaxation that
accompanies it. Sometimes we are just
weary of the ‘same old same old’.
Time and life is precious – so,
survey where it is being wasted in
your life and change what you can
to buy it back. Cut out tedious and
unnecessary activities.
Quentin Crisp, in The Naked Civil
Servant, talked about deciding to stop
dusting his apartment.
“Aer the first four years,” he said,
“It doesn’t get any worse.” As no one
was coming to see him, cleaning
became a redundant waste of time. Be
radical — change your aitudes as well
as your habits.
If you were given the gi of another
four hours every day, what would you
actually do with it?
The very novelty of stopping the
clocks at AOL caused a buzz of fun and
enthusiasm, and a rethinking of old
habits. Stop watching the clock and
start living life to the full. ●
Hurry-sick: Widespread job insecurity means greater pressure to make the most of working time
