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Less work, more productivity

There is something heroic about working away on a computer while the rest of the world sleeps, with only a cup of tea and a distant street lamp to keep one company. But the health benefits of caffeine-fuelled nights are yet to be discovered. Thus it was that just over a year ago I decided that a radical change in my lifestyle was in order.

Note that this was not a New Year-inspired turning point – it was, after all, still December. No. For reasons which need not detain us, I decided it was time for a change. So what did that mean?

Before and after

Before this, my general routine was to stop work in the evening at around 6 pm, then watch TV and/or read, and then around 9 pm make a cup of tea and start reading blogs, and writing blogs. In my mind that meant I would have more time for client-related work on the morrow.

However, in December 2020 I decided that I would be in bed by 10 pm if not earlier, which meant no tea after around 6 pm, and certainly no looking at a computer screen after 9 pm at the latest, and preferably not after 8. Plus, my return to the computer would be only to read a blog that I enjoy reading – preferably unrelated to work – or to run a malware program or two and execute my nightly backup.

The results

It’s hard to say with scientific precision whether this new regime was beneficial, partly because I did not manage to adhere to it, and partly because around the same time I acquired a cold which was more than usually unpleasant. However, if we eschew the criminal court style demands of science, in which something must be proven beyond reasonable doubt, and adopt instead the balance of probability approach of the civil court, I would say that it has almost certainly been beneficial. Not only was I less tired, I also became at least as productive, if not more so. These two observations are not, of course, unrelated.

I enjoyed (if that is the correct word) a rather dramatic revelation of the truth of that last sentence. Last January, fed up with the prospect of having that cold for the rest of my life, and deciding that it was, after all, a holiday, I decided to have a more or less complete break. This entailed almost no time at the computer but, not relishing the prospect of lying in bed for several days, I compromised by reading a book about change management. The effect was remarkable: one idea after another presented itself, and I found myself at my most intensely creative for weeks, if not longer.

How the year panned out

Over the year 2021 I did not manage to get to bed earlier than 10pm very often, and I hardly ever managed to not drink tea after 6pm. Neither did I have a complete break over Christmas, because I enjoy writing so I did a lot of it. I did, however, allow myself to restart a novel I abandoned last year. I also virtually cut out sugary “food”, and obstinately did no work , especially computer-based work, after 7pm, regardless of how urgent it was. (I decided to allow the lessons of the past determine my actions in the present. I’ve discovered that I can get far more done, and to a higher quality, by working for an hour at 7am than I can working for three hours or more up to or beyond midnight.)

So what, and what if?

What does this health report have to do with education technology? Well, on a personal level, it means I have had what I believe are great ideas for articles, which once written, will hopefully be interesting for anyone who reads them. But beyond that, I got to thinking about whether the understandable tendency of schools to relentless pursue targets is actually less productive, in the long run, than an alternative approach.

Think differently. Photo = Slanted view, by Terry Freedman

And not just schools. The Education Secretary in England , Mr Zahawi, has stated that he wants pupils who have to stay at home to have five hours a day of “remote” learning. I don’t like the term “remote learning” because it’s usually inaccurate. In this case, though, I think it’s highly apposite, because I think the likelihood of pupils learning anything after several hours on Zoom is pretty low. Has Mr Zahawi ever tried being in online meetings for hours and hours? I’ve sometimes had to and it’s knackering. He also prefers live streaming where possible.

If any of this set of demands/expectations have any basis in educational research, Mr Zahawi declined to mention his sources.

A different approach

Why not try a different way of doing things? What if pupils at home were told to spend five hours a day learning, but not necessarily online, or in formal lessons? This is probably easier to suggest for secondary school students than primary school pupils, but then I don’t think five hours a day in online lessons is a sensible option for primary school pupils anyway. I can think of alternative approaches, some of which would be more practicable than others, but I think teachers are more than capable of coming up with great, workable, ideas for their own pupils — if they are given the leeway to do so.

What if a school decided to adopt a Google-like approach to time and decree that for 20% of the week – one day, in effect – teachers and students alike could work on their own pet projects?

If that is pie in the sky, consider instead what the results might be if the Head of Computing (or equivalent) in a school declared that one lesson in five for each group was to be used, not for curriculum- or examination-centred computing, but for anything technology-related? What if, for example, students could use that time to update their own blogs, work on their own online businesses, teach themselves or each other new technology-related skills?

Unworthy cogitations?

Before you dismiss such ruminations as evidence of an inebriated New Year’s Eve (I drank only tea and water, by the way), I do have a proof of sorts that this can work. When I first started teaching, my subject was Economics. Obviously, I taught what was on the syllabus, topics like supply and demand, inflation and unemployment. But I wanted to do more than produce students who could pass an Economics exam: I wanted to produce economists. We therefore covered all sorts of topics which rarely or never came up in the exam. Topics like Third World Debt (as it was referred to in those days), the use of cigarettes as currency in prisons, and radical road-pricing approaches for dealing with traffic congestion. I even did crazy things like teach them which statistics to use (legitimately, without cheating or lying) in having a discussion with someone, depending on whether they preferred to be for or against the issue in question.

My students did just as well in Economics as they did in all their other subjects. In other words, my counterintuitive approach certainly didn’t penalise them in terms of their grades, and, I like to think, even helped them to develop both their thinking skills and their sense of social responsibility. Perhaps most important of all, our lessons were fun.

Concluding remarks

A lot of people spend this time of the season looking back over the past year and reflecting on what was. I prefer, instead, to reflect on what might be.

Happy New Year!