For Rick, 2019 was the year he quit his job as 'internal boss' at Blendle. His position could no longer be combined with the activities and work surrounding the success of his book. "It was a lot and it started to grate. So this year I listened to my own advice."
make annual plan
The secret of smart working
Rick will speak at the Frankwatching Digital oman telegram data Workspace Event about what you can do to make your working day less dominated by your overcrowded agenda and mailbox, and how you can free up more time for things that really matter.
A sneak peek of his keynote? Some people think that email overload can be solved by sending less email or denying access, as is currently the case in France, where email is banned outside of work hours. Email is cited in many studies as one of the biggest productivity killers. But according to Rick, email is not the cause of the problem at all: “I love email. It’s nice that I can just communicate with someone asynchronously.”
Slave of the device
The reason that no less than 1.3 million Dutch people have burnout symptoms is because many people do not know how to deal with all the stimuli that come their way. “The problem is that we react compulsively, we have become slaves to the device. The first thing we do in a day is check if there are new messages. Notifications are often on by default. And we are naive and think we can resist those pings.”
Lack of communication is also a major problem. “You might think that your manager can see from your face that you are having a hard time, but very often that is not the case.” Although smart digital tools can certainly help, according to Rick it is much more important to talk to each other. As an employee you have to signal clearly and in a timely manner if you are far too busy and things are not going well. “Ask your manager to look at your agenda, show him how much time it all takes. He or she might think: 'Holy shit, I didn't realize THIS'.
