People tell me I work too much. “Compared to what?” I ask. How many hours a week do you work? I don’t know how many hours I work each week. I’ve never cared enough to track it. A better question is “How many hours should one work per week?” The answer is an indicator of one's value system (perhaps we can talk about that in another blog).
If I told you I work, on average, 60-80 hours each week you would think me a workaholic. It's natural to compare a schedule to the standard 40-hour work week, born of the 5-day work week implemented at a time when employees were exploited to no end; work was scarce and people were starving. You don’t want to work 14 hours per day, seven days a week? Okay, you’re fired. There’s a line of workers waiting to take your place. Safety, sickness and injuries were major problems and the 5-day work week improved the American Worker’s health and lifestyle.
Worker conditions have changed a bit over the last 100 years and "labor" is hardly what it was then...so is 40 still the right number?
Is a farmer in harvesting season working dawn to dusk or a surgeon performing a 15-hour surgery to save a life working too much? Surely you don’t put a time limit on cleaning the house, yard work, or on being a good parent or partner...”sorry, Bobby, can’t play ball today - we’ve already had two hours of father/son time this week.” Like the farmer or the surgeon you put in as much time as it takes to get the job done. How much do I work? As much as I need to...and I love every minute of it.
Yes, I love the 60+ hours I work every week...so why don’t you love your 40 hours? The problem isn’t the work load, coworkers, the hours invested, or the job itself. The problem isn’t you work too much; the problem is you don’t know how to spend your free time.
I don’t sleep much. There’s no time.
The Math:
There are 168 hours in a week. 56 hours (33%) are devoted to sleep (assuming you sleep 8 hours per night) and 40 hours (24%) are devoted to work (for most). This leaves 72 hours (43%) to devote to free time. There’s only one problem: you’re relying on only 24% of your life to financially support the other 76%! If you expect to increase the quality of your free time you must be prepared to spend more than 24% of your time working...which means either the amount of free time or sleep have to give. You can have more free time or higher quality free time but, as a general rule, you cannot have both...so stop searching for "balance".
You go back to work on Monday morning feeling unfulfilled and unrested...”Here we go again! Monday already”. Why aren’t you refreshed after spending the weekend sleeping in, watching TV on the couch, and eating out? Truth is you hate your weekends. You don’t know how to spend your free time. Rest means rest of the mind - a distraction from the demands of work, not physically lounging around doing nothing. Your mind and body still need stimulation and this comes in the form of interactions with friends, debate and conversation, exercise, travel, Faith, projects, hobbies, etc. Not TV, potato chips, or waking up at 10am. The happiest people in the world are productive people. Rethink how you spend your free time. If you’re not exhausted at the end of your weekend you’re not doing it right.
I promise you if you're tired on Sunday night from an exhausting weekend you'll enjoy work more that coming week than you ever have. Work is the means to an end...suck it up and live it up.
