Startup or not, people are working longer hours even if they aren’t in an office.

Millennials are burning out, because they feel guilty unless they are working.

People of all ages, even those well into their seventies are working longer and proud of it. Having spare time has become a symbol of low value, while being always busy equates to high status.

So it’s no surprise that companies and individual bosses are taking advantage and always pushing people to increase productivity.

When what they should be doing is sending them home, since working longer hours has been proved to lower productivity.

As countless studies have shown, this simply isn’t true. Productivity dramatically decreases with longer work hours, and completely drops off once people reach 55 hours of work a week, to the point that, on average, someone working 70 hours in a week achieves no more than a colleague working 15 fewer hours.

But that doesn’t stop various media from writing job shaming articles making fun of successful, well-known people working retail jobs.

Fans wondered why it was deemed newsworthy that a mother of two had taken a job in a different sector when her best-known role as an actor had wound down. (Soap stars, even on massive hits like EastEnders, do not earn early-retirement-level salaries.)

The fiasco echoed a similar attempt at job-shaming by another British tabloid last year, when the Daily Mail published photos of American actor Geoffrey Owens bagging groceries as a cashier at a Trader Joe’s, a retail chain known for its excellent job benefits. Fox News picked up the story in the US and both media outlets were ridiculed for it.

And, for a change, the trolls crawled quietly back under their rocks. Will wonders never cease.

Many of those working so-called low-level jobs are college graduates.

McKinsey findings show that 48% of employed U.S. college grads are in jobs that require less than a four-year degree.

Geoffrey Owens summed it up best.

“There is no job that’s better than another job. It might pay better, it might have better benefits, it might look better on a resume and on paper. But actually, it’s not better. Every job is worthwhile and valuable,”

Image credit: Kat

I have been pretty busy lately and am not proud of it. Most of my time is taken up with mundane tasks, but they do keep me occupied.

I have small children so a successful day involves my wife and I getting a chance to catch up on laundry and dishes.

I also have the demands of work, which is good, because wouldn’t you rather have that than no work at all?

However, busy is also a euphemism that whatever you’re working on isn’t truly that important.

When I have work or friends that ask for my time and I say I am busy it is typically a polite way of saying I don’t want to do it or they are not a priority.

In aggregate, we see this as a society where there are silos of people who have only a few select relationships and follow a set pattern.

Those workaholics who are always at the office are often celebrated by society and condemned by those that work for them. I had a boss years ago who worked all the time and expected those below them to do so as well. I hated it.

However, I have followed a pattern lately where I am in that same condition.

I work a lot but feel like nothing is getting done.

I have been in this place before and typically the way I get out is by setting small priorities that I can work towards and build upon that.

How do you get out of the hamster wheel of work and become productive?

Note that HBS claims there is some good that can come of it.

Image credit: Roban Kramer

If you’re anywhere close to sales you know last week was a busy one. For some it was end of quarter, others the month, and for a few it was end of year.

As much as we would all like to have our sales done well before the end, it rarely happens. I have found the end of a quarter to be this odd nebulous time. You typically can’t push a sale more than it already is and you’re in a waiting game to get it in.

There are a lot of calls with legal, management and then a lot of waiting. I love the crush of it all, but for non-sales folks I think it’s hard to convey the roller coaster of emotions.

However, the first week of a new quarter is like stepping in a new car right off the lot.

Everything is shiny and new; all is right in the world and you have a brief moment to relax.

I am a firm believer that rest is required to excel. I have taken this week to do that and get in some needed time for myself.

I have been to the beach, spent time with old friends and made time with family. It has had the much needed result of putting things in perspective and allowing me to appreciate why I work.

I don’t think we are meant to be machines, always pushing our metrics. That’s not to say we are not meant to excel, but I don’t think it should be our only focus.

There are a few single minded individuals in the world who seem to not relax, but I know this cannot be true as we have all seen what burnout looks like.

As I write this, I just returned from spending time together with family and catching up. I’m relaxed, in the moment and ready for the week to begin when I return to work.

How do you approach rejuvenation?

Image credit: kansasphoto

Is productivity important to you? Do you strive to do everything more efficiently? If so, you have a lot of company these days.

No matter where you turn you find hacks to improve your work skills, raise your kids, change your diet, lose weight, even improve your love life.

But in your drive for productivity, have you stopped and asked yourself if productivity is a good goal? In other words, are the benefits all they’re cracked up to be?

I’ve never believed they were.

It always seemed to me that constantly chasing a better way to do [whatever] in the name of efficiency meant expending great energy for a constantly shrinking return of higher productivity.

It’s not the improvement I have a problem with, it’s the relentlessness that turns me off. The feeling that if you aren’t constantly looking to improve you lose your value as a viable human being.

Last year, in a post about the idea that being busy was aspirational I said,

But no matter how long I live I doubt I’ll ever understand the fragility of egos that need to prove their value so badly they are willing to give up their lives to do it.

I didn’t then, and still don’t, have the historical knowledge or understanding to support what I feel, but Andrew Taggart, Ph.D., a “practical philosopher” who practices in Silicon Valley perfectly expressed my belief in Life hacks are part of a 200-year-old movement to destroy your humanity.

Taggart explains it this way.

These explanations can be reduced to two basic kinds. The first kind implies that much of life is burdened by mental suffering—feelings of being overwhelmed and stressed—that can, through our own concerted efforts, be alleviated or at least coped with by finding the right productivity hacks. The second suggests that life is a “middle class epic” whose finale would depict a form of satisfaction following from the completion of the most challenging tasks at work. Call it Inbox Zero Integrity.

Yet neither the desire to lessen our everyday mental suffering nor the pursuit for short-term satisfaction ultimately explains our deep cultural obsession with productivity. What drives it instead, I’d argue, is a 200-year-old movement toward making work the center of our lives.

I’ve been saying for decades that work should be part of life, not vice versa.

There are many ways to measure the ROI in your life, just as there are more important things for which to work.

They just don’t fit into the “productivity” or “efficiency” categories.

Read the article.

It may just change your life.

Image credit: Denise Krebs

Live mindfully long enough and you can get an interesting perspective on lifestyle changes.

Some will please, some not; some you’ll question, some deplore, and some will cause you to shake your head in amazement.

The last is how I felt when I read new research from HBS.

In fact, some boast the lack of spare time as a status symbol—even an aspirational lifestyle.

“The new conspicuous consumption is about saying, I am the scarce resource, and therefore I am valuable.”

I’ve seen this first hand, not just in the startup community or twenty-somethings, but among Gen Xers, Boomers and even my own peers.

It used to be that overload came from always saying yes, instead of a carefully evaluated “no” — however, if you are known for saying ‘yes’ be prepared for the backlash if you change.

These days, the things that keep you busy also need to raise your profile/ reputation/Klout score/ increase your Likes/generate followers (preferably on multiple platforms)/social presence/etc.

A couple of year after I started MCS a reader asked why I bothered to do it when it generated so few comments.

My response was that I wasn’t writing to promote myself, but to provide information to those who wanted/needed it and that comments came when readers had questions or wanted to add to the dialogue.

While accurate, my response ignored the fact that because my blog is not high profile commenting on it has a very low ROI.

That said, I understand and don’t fault readers.

We live in a world where building your personal brand is a necessary part of building a career, so the time allotted to writing comments needs to provide a certain ROI and, of course, you are busy.

OK, I get all that.

But no matter how long I live I doubt I’ll ever understand the fragility of egos that need to prove their value so badly they are willing to give up their lives to do it.

Image credit: Sean MacEntee

People, in all their varied glory are as Spock said, fascinating.

They come in many different flavors and ‘entrepreneur’ is one of my favorites.

Entrepreneurs come in many flavors, too. From the ones that set out to build the next Google, Facebook, Apple or Intel to the micropreneurs who just want to earn a decent living.

Within every business of any size at any stage there are tasks that are prime for avoidance.

Stuff like establishing culture; defining values; developing financial controls, etc.

All kinds of intangible infrastructure that can wait “until things calm down” or “when we’re bigger”

In other words, mañana—and we all know when that is.

Or, as Ryan Blair says, “If it’s important you’ll find a way. If it’s not, you’ll find an excuse.”

Flickr image credit: JD | Photography

Are you familiar with the old sayings, “don’t trouble trouble unless trouble troubles you” or “don’t go looking for trouble?”

More and more often I hear from and about managers at all levels who seem to be making this attitude central to their management approach.

Not just managers, but workers, too, have absorbed the message into their MAP.

They tell me that they are so overloaded, so busy, with so many fires to fight, that they can only deal with what is actually happening.

They claim there is no time for preventatives; no time to “nip [whatever] in the bud.”

I tell them that if they made time to stamp out the sparks now they wouldn’t be fighting so many fires next week/month/year.

What about you?

Are you a firefighter or Smokey the Bear?

Flickr photo credit to: http://www.flickr.com/photos/billmcdavid/3840647521/

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