Lunch at Tiffanys

I often wonder how much time I could save, or better yet, how much sooner I could finish my work for the day and head home, if I made a conscious effort to remove all the unnecessary, time-wasting activities.   

• Say, if I told the people that kept stopping by my cubicle to ask a question (or two or three), and then ultimately chit chat about things I have to feign interest in, to submit their questions in writing, I could save say, 25-30 minutes every day.
• Or if I didn't talk to anyone in the bathroom. Depending on how many times I went, that could easily save 10-15 minutes.
• If I didn't compulsively check my blog to see if any new comments surfaced - 10 minutes saved.
• If I signed off Outlook Messenger and neglected Ashlee's and Cristine's blinking messages, another 20 minutes.
• And what if I cut out the ultimate drain on productivity – lunch? 30 - 60 minutes saved.
• All in all, these time saving measures could get me home between 2:00 and 3:00 every day instead of 6:00 or 6:30. 

The thing is, as a communications professional some of these more social activities are unavoidable. You basically have to demonstrate your mean oral and written communication skills everywhere you go at the office - whether it's in response to the inane question, telling someone how great they look in the bathroom mirror, chit chatting in line to get your Rolo McFlurry, or using an IMing device to reach clarity on an issue, there are some conversations you can't avoid. But lunch and the lingered conversations that go along with it are avoidable. And for the past two years, skipping it has kept my workdays a little more compact. 

Generally, I'm very good at the no lunch thing. My Mom used to tell me that all she had for lunch was a can of Diet Coke, and as an absolute super woman, I believed it to be the liquid diet of champions. So I developed my own power lunch routine - Diet Sprite and a bag of 100-calorie popcorn. This dynamic lunching keeps me powering along until I reach absolute fatigue around 5:00.  I really don’t understand the whole ladies that lunch thing - talk about a drain on productivity. Even if I didn’t work I would much rather be a lady that runs, writes, colors, and cooks during the day, and a lady that gets cocktails at night.

But last week, during our staff meeting, Betty warned us about the health risks associated with eating lunch at your desk, and we were all encouraged to get up and get out for lunch. So I kept the popcorn in my cupboard this week and went out. Not once, not twice, but three times! Monday, Cristine and I had a very delicious and productive venting session. Wednesday, my whole team went to Labriola for lunch, which brought beneficial brainstorming activity. And then yesterday, as I was feeling more and more comfortable with lunch breaking, the ultimate break happened, perhaps making me a lunch convert for life. I set a date at high noon right underneath the Tiffany's sign. And Peter and I had lunch at Tiffany's. Rather than a brown bag, my lunch came in a little blue box. And it was delicious. 

Even with my lunch breaks, I've still been home by 6:00 PM each night this week. Basically, they really haven't set me back. In fact, they've been rather rejuvenating and I haven't been a ravenous monster in need of pre-dinner grazing when I get home. They also tended to refresh my thinking and help me deliver better results in the afternoons. And thinking about the sparkling band that will king my other ring on September 3, provided an impetus to work even harder because the money that came from the cost saving measures that I implemented recently, just got spent. 

Lo.