The fairy tale of excess capacity
In consulting it is fashionable, sometimes even mandatory to work hard and to work excessive hours. Of course when it comes to formal documentation of the hours worked everybody is 100% compliant with German labour laws...'of course'. However the 'informal reality' often gives a different impression. The notion that anyone is capable of working more than ten hours highly concentrated on a daily basis over several days or weeks time by pure willpower is something I always considered suspicious to say the least. I witnessed a decent count of occasions of late work and night shifts, where a team had to hit a deadline for a proposal or some documents for workshops or a steering committee and so on. On these occasions I noticed two different types of colleagues: the ones that were staring holes into their laptop screens while typing and clicking away on their computers frantically and the ones that were not. You guessed it: 4 out of 5 of the guys on the team usually belong to the latter category. They are the regular guys, who usually play ball for reasons that are potentially content for another post. Anyways: The thing is, these regular guys are not there out of conviction. In fact they have no clue why they are still working during sleeping hours except because they were asked to by their manager. And then there are the few driven ones who will create 80% of the results, or more likely, oversee that results are created. My point is not if you should cheer for either of those types. My point is that working late is the result of a failed capacity planning and failed priorities in the first place. Nobody -not anyone on earth- should be working after 6pm. But David, what if a nuclear war is just a push of a button away? Shouldn't we be working hard then? No! Face it: it's an entire chain of failed opportunities that lead up to that point. So in this case it is 'Goodbye and die in honour with a smile on your face.'.Excessive Work Renders Only Diminishing Returns
Work after six will not be nearly as productive as work during your 'golden hours', except if you start your day in the afternoon. But what about doing some administrative, low complexity work then? If you do that, it's almost worse: your low value adding work will take away the only time you have for yourself. This may disrupt your recovery, your time with your family, time to engage in a hobby like reading books, writing a blog, growing your youtube channel or whatever recreational activities you use for recreation. Once you've depleted your 'value work' capacities you should switch to another mode. Stop working and do something different. Remember this: It's ok for you to enjoy, even to love your work. In fact, it's the best situation you can imagine. However, your work will never love you! With excessive work hours you will harm yourself by making your work less enjoyable over time. When I hear of people -usually managers- suffering a burnout, I often ask myself, what chain of missed opportunities lead up to that point, where people inevitably break. Don't get me wrong: these are all smart, ambitious, self reflected people. Nevertheless I think you will set your own trap if you don't apply some relentless rules to cap your own capacities. You need to limit your resources because creating an illusion of endless capacities will spell havoc upon your work schedule, eventually on your overall schedule and finally upon your very life.
Finish Work by 6pm
My tip here is to stop working at 6pm - just don't accept any invitations, don't send any emails, don't respond to instant messages after 6pm. If that's too radical a move, here's a compromise: You might still take phone calls on your commute. Make a hard cut. Turn off your computer. Put your work phone on silent mode. And maybe, only maybe, tomorrow the sun might yet set again. And the birds might yet sing again. Wouldn't that be crazy? Try it - today :-)
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