The proliferation of social media and all the many technology tools we have are mostly designed to make us more productive – in our professional and personal lives. Yet, as David Allen points out in the New York Times recently, many of us feel less productive than ever! Allen suggests that to solve this issue, rather than throw even more organizational tools at us, we need to “create a structure for capturing, clarifying and organizing all the forces that assail us; and to ensure time and space for thinking, reflecting and decision making.”
Allen’s article appears in the NYT Sunday Business feature, Reshaping the Workplace, and is alongside a piece by Lawrence W. Cheek about office design. The point of these two and other articles in this interesting feature is that how office spaces are designed will mean more for worker productivity, fulfillment and creativity than other solutions we’ve employed until now. Google, DreamWorks, G.E. and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are among the organizations cited as examples of innovatively designed workspaces. These take into consideration critical factors like: what does an open floor plan mean for introverts? how can I keep information confidential and conversations private if I’m in the middle of thirty co-workers? how can I concentrate with all this noise all around me all the time?
Workspaces have evolved, as have many other work-related areas – the result of decades of study. Things like flex-time, tele-commuting, job sharing and a range of other innovations have contributed to the satisfaction and engagement of many of us.
Which innovations like these have meant the most to you, to the world of work in general? I’d be interested to hear!
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