TOO MANY HOURS ON THE TOOLS? The poisonous effect of regularly working long hours.
I recently posted a list of the possible symptoms to watch out for in regard to Burnout. One of those is “that long hours are your norm”. I am now going to jump on my soap box for a moment. Please bear with me and know, that like a caring and disciplining parent, I do this with love in my heart! 😉 This post is provocative and comes with a warning…there is shouty text and strategies suggested that might just help you avoid the burn or the burnout. You’re welcome!! 🤪
It is unbelievably commonplace for those in senior positions to be working well above their contracted and paid hours. The majority of my clients do and it’s one of the sadly common place coaching convos we have. Given many of my clients are driven high achievers they dance all too closely with burnout and this is one of the most common underlying reasons. TOO MANY HOURS ON THE TOOLS!
FOR GOODNESS SAKE (yes bossy tone here!! 😆)…if you want to look after your wellbeing you MUST put a boundary around your work hours. If you are employed what is it that you positively gain from working more than 40 hours a week regularly? I would suggest that list might be quite short. The negative gain list however, is endless!
If you are a leader or an employer please please bring in to your wellbeing culture an awareness of the hours that you work and therefore are role modelling to your team that is OK to do. IT IS NOT OK!! Productivity or fulfilment does not increase from longer hours, it decreases.
If any of you have followed the success of the 4 Day Week started by Perpetual Guardian you will know that the trial was spurred on by research showing that actual work productivity was surprisingly less than 3 hours per day.
This from the 4 day week white paper: “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American works 8.8 hours every day. Yet a UK study of nearly 2,000 full-time office workers found that the average time spent working is two hours and 53 minutes each day, with workers also spending time using social media and reading news websites, making personal calls and texts, talking to co-workers about non-work-related matters, searching for new jobs, and taking smoke breaks and preparing food and drinks.”
When else would you have time to do your personal stuff when you spend most of your awake hours working?!!
Perpetual Guardian’s founder Andrew Barnes decided to run a 4 day week trial “after reading several global reports on productivity, for which New Zealand is one of the lowest-ranked OECD countries.”
Whilst the 4 day week was originally about engagement and productivity it of course is heralded as a successful initiative supporting wellbeing in the workplace. And whilst I am not wishing to force such an initiative on organisations (although I whole heartedly back it) I am wishing to encourage some solid action to be taken on work hours and to acknowledge how long hours erode your wellbeing, energy, productivity, creativity and life fulfilment/enjoyment.
So why on earth would you do it? I of course ask this with my tongue firmly in my cheek – I’ve been there, I’ve done this – in the past I too have been guilty of turning up my achievement and work purpose dial to full tilt. But what is the outcome? Loss of love and energy for the job, stress and overwhelm, lack of personal fun outside the office and of course the dreaded road to BURN OUT.
Please make yourself a priority and look at ways to implement boundaries that support you in being the amazing human and leader that you are. Imagine how cool life is when you have time to chill, reflect, learn, play and feel fresh.
If you’d like a hand with this I am happy to come and talk with you and/or your team on wellbeing strategies for driven achievers. I have a lot of goodies in my toolkit! Get in touch if my words have struck any kind of chord. I’m here to help. 🖤
#wellbeingatwork #rolemodelgoodbehaviour #itstartswithyou