Working from nine to five, or a fixed schedule never felt natural. The friction of trying to mould work into timed slots can be very difficult and sometimes counter-productive. That isn’t to say there aren’t jobs that require a structure such as call centres or most shops you physically visit. Indeed, my time at an IT help desk was mostly nine to five.
However, most of the work I do these days do not fit into nine to five schedule and that idea of a working week feels made up. Instead, I like to propose a term to describe the current trend I’m observing not only in my own working schedule but also in others: momentum based working. The main idea behind momentum based work is to press on the job when there are things to do and slow down when there isn’t much according to the work you’re doing. It’s a sort of push-and-pull relationship that is dictated by the current momentum rather than time.
Momentum workers gradually get into a piece of work, stay in that zone having built up the momentum then gradually cool down based on the job at hand instead of timed working slots.
Most of my recent projects and personal work had features of momentum based work. Initially things start slow, maybe an hour or two a day thinking, creating a coding repository and structuring things. Even if I join an existing team, it takes time to settle in before productivity can increase. Gradually, I get into the problem, understand what is going on and build up momentum. Once I’m in the middle of it, I work on it until a random checkpoint that feels natural. Is it a weekend? I don’t care, it’s easier and more productive I would argue to maintain momentum rather than tell yourself it is a weekend and switch off. Having reached the reasonable checkpoint and it’s a Tuesday, I might take the day off. In other words, working hours do not dictate when I should be forced to be productive, it is the work that creates waves of productivity of which the peak is what people refer to as a midweek, and troughs the weekend. Whether those peaks and troughs coincide with actual weekends is random.
Bring out the best in people
Momentum based working is all about growing and learning. It spawns from tapping into the enormous potential each and every one of us have. We are good at different things, we learn in various ways and we work at different speeds. Momentum based work gives everyone a chance to work at their best rather than work at the hours we want them to.
Isn’t this just flexible working? Flexible working focuses on your hours being flexible not the hours themselves at its core. Momentum based working transforms the idea of hours into a moving force.
You may think of a snow plough clearing a road. You cleared most of the road but you’re out of time. Will you leave the road under snow? Or will you clear it? If you clear the road, you’re inclined to be a momentum based worker, if you leave it under snow you might prefer timed work.
Managers and Momentum
Manager might not like momentum based workers. Well that’s odd right? Why wouldn’t a manager like a high momentum team at peak productivity? That’s because the team has to take random breaks to maintain their health. Sure, a high momentum team might work over the weekend but with this style of work you can’t tell them when and when not to work. For example, and this has happened to me in a team, you agree on a goal. You build up momentum and say “ah, I’ll just get this done this weekend because I know what is going on and it’ll be easier to finish rather than switch off for 2 days.” But we said the project potentially has another week, we could be ahead of schedule. You come in on Monday and tell your manager the milestone is done.
Ideally, at this stage your manager should say “great work, take Tuesday off” but most often what happens, and happened to me, is “great work, we can now start the next milestone”. Then you face the dilemma of lowering your productivity and expectations to fit a nine to five schedule. At this point, you might naturally opt to never build up momentum in the first place.
You can be more productive with 4 hours of work than a 40 hour work week.
And this really relates to the idea of momentum based working. It’s not the hours you have designated, it is more about the hours you are productive and those might be less or more than 40.
What about hourly work?
In my consulting work, I always find it confusing when people expect me to charge hourly. With momentum based work, it doesn’t really make sense. If I’m being really productive and efficient, I cram more into an hour but end up getting paid less. If I work slowly or pace things out nine to five I get paid more. I started considering more project level pricing that fits momentum based working rather than an hourly rate.
This is especially true for the consulting work because each project is different. But that isn’t to say you should opt for momentum based working because you simply can’t fit the existing work into a schedule, that’s called time management. Momentum based working requires even more effective time management because we have removed the guard rails around when to work.