Let the sun set on Daylight Saving Time

When I reflect on the person that I was 20 years ago, I hardly recognize myself. My values, my priorities, and my ambitions have all undergone radical changes with the passage of time. Some of the things that seemed to be of great import in my younger days have all but disappeared from my mental radar screen, while others that I may have taken for granted back then have my full attention now.

One of the things that I scarcely gave a passing thought to as a young man was my health. I could pretty much do as I pleased with my body and there were few consequences. Excessive physical activity, poor nutrition, sleeping only when it was convenient – all of these vices I used to be able to indulge in without a second thought and I was still able to roll out of bed every morning and face the day more or less at full speed.

Now it is a very different story. I have to take care of myself or I know I will pay the price. So even though I wouldn’t call myself a health nut, I try to make good decisions when it comes to how I treat my body. That means working outside all day in the mid-summer heat is not an option, a bag of potato chips no longer passes for a meal, and I try to be in bed every night long before David Letterman does his opening monologue.

But sometimes, no matter how hard I try to take care of my health, things happen outside of my control that force me to engage in unhealthy behavior. That can be very frustrating. And one of those frustrating, out-of-my-control health hazards will be making its regularly scheduled (and unwelcome) visit in just a few weeks. I am talking about the menace known as Daylight Saving Time.

Soon I will be forced to “spring forward”, losing a valuable hour of sleep one night and (even worse) hopelessly mucking up my circadian rhythm for untold weeks to come. It isn’t fair, it isn’t right, and as far as I am concerned it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Daylight Saving Time is supposed to allow us to enjoy an “extra” hour of daylight in the spring and summer months, but frankly I believe I would enjoy those days much more if I wasn’t half-asleep most of the time. There is also a school of thought that says it saves on energy costs and is good for certain types of businesses, but those contentions have never been quantified or proven.

The benefits of changing our clocks twice a year are relatively nebulous and anecdotal, but the costs to our collective health are concrete and well-known. Lack of proper sleep has been shown to be a major health hazard afflicting many Americans, and setting and resetting the time twice a year significantly aggravates the problem.

Therefore I believe that it is time to stop springing forward and/or falling back. Let’s pick a time and stick with it, and we’ll all be a little healthier and a little less grumpy all year ‘round.

If you feel the same way, you might be asking yourself if there is an organization that is fighting to get DST repealed and if said group has a web site. There is, and they do. If you’re interested, surf on over to www.standardtime.com and see how you can get involved in ending the madness known as Daylight Saving Time. Sign the petition and click on the links that tell you how to write your congressional representatives to share your feelings on the matter with them.

Hey, I know this isn’t curing cancer or anything, but I really believe we would all be a little happier and healthier if we introduced some stability into our time keeping system. That’s a (lack of) change I can believe in.

Added stress from the boss does not increase productivity

“I need this done yesterday. “

“I’m really counting on you to meet this deadline.”

“The schedule is very aggressive, but we have to come through for the customer.”

If you’ve been in the working world for any period of time, chances are you’ve heard these phrases or something very similar from a boss who was exhorting you to get something done quickly. No doubt he or she believed that giving you that kind of “encouragement” was necessary and part of their job. They would likely justify their actions by saying that tight deadlines are part of reality in the business world, and sometimes a boss has to force employees to face unpleasant realities so that they’ll be motivated to give the extra effort needed to get the job done.

That kind of thinking seems to be conventional wisdom in the business world, but I’ve never been a fan of that particular management style. I’ve certainly had some experience with it.

I spent 15 years working for defense contractors, and in that time I learned that a contractor often wins a job by being “aggressive” in estimating how long it will take for them to accomplish it. Once the contract is won, workers are charged with making the fantasies dreamed up in the marketing department become reality. Sometimes that just isn’t feasible, and that’s when mangers start quoting military leaders who implored soldiers to overcome long odds for God and country. As a worker you realize that what they are really saying is that your weekends are no longer your own.

I often felt that all of the stress managers tend to put on employees when there is not enough time in the day to get everything done is actually counterproductive. Most people simply do not do their best work under stressful conditions, and that seems to be especially true when the task at hand is largely intellectual rather than physical. It seemed to me that all of the hand-waving and mandatory 7-day work weeks might actually be making those projects take longer than they would if everyone wasn’t acting as if the world was coming to an end.

It is always gratifying when scientific studies seem to add weight to one’s pet theories, and today I have a message for managers everywhere who believe they can browbeat their employees into meeting unrealistic deadlines – you might just be making things worse.

As evidence I cite a study performed by Michael DeDonno at Case Western University that was reported in the December issue of “Judgment and Decision Making”. In the study, test subjects were asked to perform an intellectually-intensive task and were given a set amount of time to complete the task. Some of the participants were told that they had plenty of time to complete the task, while others were told that time was short and they needed to hurry.

Unsurprisingly, those who were not “pressed for time” performed markedly better on the task. But perhaps a little surprising was the fact that even those who were, in fact, given less time to finish but were told that they had plenty of time performed better than those who were given more time but told that time was of the essence.

The lesson here is obvious, but one they apparently do no teach in management classes: putting pressure on people to solve intellectual problems faster is counterproductive. And my experience in the business world backs that proposition up. Without exception, all of the projects I was involved with in which people were constantly badgered to meet an unrealistic schedule were a disaster for everyone involved, including the customer.

But is it true that a placid, “let’s just do the best we can” management style would be more effective for a time-crunched project? Good question. If I ever experience that approach, I’ll let you know.