Overview

Who: Three executives at construction-tech start-up Matrak Industries

When: March – August 2021

Why: Seeking to increase productivity while supporting work/life balance and job satisfaction.

How: Research has well-established the associations between productivity, work-life balance and job satisfaction (for example, see here, here and here). Combining research and participants’ data sets, TimeBeings delivered highly-targeted coaching to Matrak executives to enable behaviour change that lasts.

“Ultimately, everything comes down to how you spend your time. The quality of your relationships, your satisfaction at work, your physical health… TimeBeings calls you out. By putting hard numbers on your goals, expectations and reality, you can immediately see areas to improve your life, based on what’s important to you.”

Brett Hodgkins, Co-founder and CTO

The need

At the start of the engagement, all participants indicated they were dissatisfied with how they were spending their time. This was measured through survey responses as well as through quantitative goal setting.

The Matrak team’s time awareness also needed improvement, with their estimates of time spent on an activity varying from actuals by an average of 49%. Each team member had at least one inaccuracy greater than 120%. This is important because research shows even small cognitive time distortions can reduce individual productivity.

The team’s priority challenge was to reduce time spent in internal meetings. Here, the data backed up the stories told, with 41% of their work time in internal meetings (51 hours in total). The team’s aim was to exchange some of this time for deep, focused work.

In the personal domain, each participant had set an individual goal to spend more time on themselves (on hobbies, self-care or self-development).

The results

By the end of their first cycle with TimeBeings, the three team members all reported improved time satisfaction and time awareness. They also saw improvements in each other’s time choices.

The quantitative results backed up their observations. The team added over 13 additional hours of deep work to their week, while reducing time in meetings. In the personal domain, each participant added more than 10 hours of ‘me time’.

Importantly, there’s confidence the changes will stick. Two participants indicated they had established systems and habits to ensure their behaviour changes would continue, while the other participant would like continued support. In fact, all participants said they’d like to work with TimeBeings at least annually to continue working towards their time goals.

And that’s great news, because priorities, needs and circumstances change. TimeBeings is about long-term partnerships that support start-up professionals to own their time.

Notes on context: In lockdown conditions, we expect overall work hours to increase, and time in meetings to reduce. The team’s results for these metrics were in line with expectations, taking the changing lockdown context into account.

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