I tell people that I work in one-hour bursts and of course it’s true, I wouldn’t lie to you. I also point out that many folks follow the Pomodoro technique of working for, say, 25 minutes, then breaking for 5, working for 25, break for 5 and so on. Whatever works for you, works for you. But it does all unthinkingly assume that every hour is the same.

It’s a qualitative lens instead of a quantitative one. Focusing on your time management skills sounds great but all hours are not created equal.

We’re not machines and the time model is a machine model. Our job isn’t to be a machine — it’s to give the machines something brilliant to do.

Do you accomplish more in three hours when you’re sleep-deprived or in one hour when you feel energetic, optimistic and engaged?

This may sound fluffy but it’s an important perspective to take: 10 hours of work when you’re exhausted, cranky and distracted might be far less productive than 3 hours when you’re “in the zone.”

So why not focus less on hours and more on doing what it takes to make sure you’re at your best?

Time Management Skills are Stupid. Here’s What Works – Barking Up the Wrong Tree (September 2013)

Eric Barker writing in his productivity blog. He goes on to recommend that we work like athletes do:

Use the analogy of an athlete. They might train for long periods of time but the focus is not on monotonous hours of uninspired grind.
For athletes, it’s a focused explosion of effort followed by rest and planning before another all-out push.

I don’t know. I find what works for me is the steady drip, drip, drip. Some days I fly and that’s when I am at my most creative, when I am simply creating the most, but the mountain of work gets climbed in small steps for me. But Barker writes persuasively: see what you think in the full piece.