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Dedicate an entire day to your most arduous professional tasks, without any source of distraction, to leave for the weekend with a free and peaceful mind. This is the whole point of ‘Focus Friday’, a method adopted by certain American companies which not only makes it possible to increase productivity, but also to feel much less stressed. Explanations.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today! A well-known expression that could more specifically apply to Friday, at least in the context of work. After a busy week, it can be tempting to take the pressure off by indulging in procrastination, meeting anxiety, or any other activity that might distract you from your hard work, but this attitude can also be stressful as the day approaches. weekend – and an inevitable start of next week. A study published in the journal Plos One revealed, in August 2023, that employees were generally less efficient on Friday afternoons, confirming this theory. But then, how to fix it?
‘Focus Friday’ could be the solution to being more productive at the end of the week, and going away for the weekend without having to think about the tasks that are piling up and waiting for you to return to the office. This concept simply consists of doing the complete opposite, namely devoting your Fridays to difficult tasks, thorny files, and above all to everything that you did not have time to do during the week, from simply sending Email to the report remained closed on your desktop. But more than anything, it’s about putting an end to unwanted calls and instant chats, distractions, and above all… meetings.
“Meetings, love them or hate them, have always been a part of everyday work life. But they can also easily take over your work week and distract you from more productive work. Meeting-free time allows you to fully concentrate on your tasks without being constantly interrupted“, explains Ray’n Terry, director of human resources at Totaljobs, relayed by Stylist UK. The magazine, which spotted the trend from the start of the 2023 school year, also indicated that companies, such as Google and Slack, had already been seduced by this innovative approach.
The objective, as we will have understood, is to make Mondays lighter, considered one of the most difficult days of the week, and to have stress-free weekends. It is also an opportunity to put an end to ‘Sunday scaries’, an English term used to refer to difficulties falling asleep and other insomnia experienced on Sunday evening in anticipation of returning to work. “It changes everything! It structures the weeks. We better optimize our time and our energy. We don’t spread ourselves too thin, we have a framework. And above all, we don’t end the week in a state of stress, in a rush”, rejoices a developer at Slack, interviewed by The echoeswhich also relayed the trend.
Note that this approach is the polar opposite of a method that became popular last fall, the “quiet weekend” which consists of organizing your work week in such a way as to lighten your… Fridays.
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