As they say in the classics, money can’t buy you love or time. But what if you could get some time back for yourself and your family? Be pretty good, wouldn’t it?
Before this pandemic started, I had a few city-based meetings. I was doing some consulting work for a large MNC, and the meetings were to catch up for some detailed briefings.
But the 930am meetings were a 2-hour round trip from home, and most of that time was spent in the last few KMs of the trip getting a park in the city centre. And only now does it seem so ridiculous that you would spend 2 hours a day travelling to and from work. I mean it doesn’t make sense when you see all the technology enabling you to have these meetings on a face-to-face video chat.
But, pre-COVID, suggesting a video meeting was met with a pretty negative response. In the service industry, it was seen as not really caring. Clients would think it an affront if a supplier wouldn’t make an effort to attend a meeting in person. Personal contact was considered essential and has been since forever.
Then the five-letter monster that is COVID came along, and everything turned to video conferencing overnight. And guess what? The earth didn’t stop rotating; the sun still came up in the morning, and people kept being productive. Actually, in a lot of instances, they became more productive.
And the massive under-reported benefit. More time. If you gave me back 2 hours of travelling time every day, I might get that golf handicap back into single figures. Others might visit that friend they never get to see. Some might rest a little bit or catch that sunset at the beach.
COVID hasn’t been good to the world, but maybe, just maybe, when it comes to working, it might help you get hold of the one thing you can’t buy, and that’s TIME. How you spend it is up to you, I’ll be cursing my way down the 4th hole at my golf club.
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