Catherwood LibraryILR School

You just finished an eight-hour day at the office and, looking back, you barely got anything done. Now you feel guilty and worthless. What happened? Rest assured that you are not alone. Heightened demands at work, combined with endless distractions and interruptions, are conspiring to make some workers feel scattered, confused and unsatisfied. In response, they are either shutting down and going on eBay, or spinning their wheels by doing busywork that is at most tangentially related to the core mission of their business. Most people, though, do not want to be idle or inefficient at work; they want "productive, rewarding jobs where they feel they are making a difference," said Mark Ellwood, president of Pace Productivity, a company based in Toronto that studies how employees spend their time.