Fall is coming. Fall means football, leaf-peeping, cider and winter is coming. The season is also time to start that big project. New data from Redbooth maker of a web-based workplace collaboration tool says that Autumn is the most productive time to start a project. The San Francisco, CA-based firm looked at 1.8 million projects and 28 million tasks over a four-year period and quantified what a lot of us already intuitively know.
Fall is the most productive time to start a project
The data found that the average person gets more work done in the fall than in any other season. The study found that people are:
20% more productive in autumn than in winter- 11% more productive in autumn than in spring
- 7% more productive in autumn than summer
It should not surprise anyone who has lived through a Detroit winter that we are less productive in winter. Snow – cold – no Sun – SADD. It is a bit surprising to me that summer is a more productive season to start a project. We are actually more productive in summer than spring.
October is the most productive month
Redbooth found that October is the most productive month followed by September and November. The least productive time to start a project is in January. People complete 9.5% of tasks in October, while in January they only do 7.2%. The researchers surmised that it could be the holiday rush that pressures people into getting more done or perhaps even adults have that refreshed, back to school feeling in the fall.
Monday is the most productive day
This one is a bit more surprising. Even though don’t like Mondays, Redbooth says we work well on them. Monday is the most productive time to start a project. People reported completing the most tasks at 20.4%. Only 16.7% of tasks are completed on Fridays, making Friday nearly 20% less productive than Monday.
The author speculates that given the relatively low completion levels on the latter days of the week, it’s likely that Monday is the “catch up” day at work. Studies have shown that as many as 81% of workers get the “Sunday Blues” — or an impending feeling of dread over the work week ahead. It’s possible that this dread pushes us to work harder earlier in the week.
11 AM is the most productive time
We work best just before Lunch. Productivity peaks at 11 AM with 9.7% of tasks completed. After that, the effects of food set in, and a slump tends to occur after 1 PM. After 1 PM, productivity never quite returns to its peak, due to the “post-lunch dip.”
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So the data says you should start your most critical projects on a Monday at 11 AM in October.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.