What to Do When You Are Working Too Much

Sometimes I think that working too much is seen as a badge of honor. We mention to others that we’ve been working so hard. We mention to friends that we put in “60 hours last week”. And although it seems we say these things to get sympathy, sometimes you wonder if you are using it to show how dedicated you are.

Working a lot doesn’t equal working well — If you work too many hours then chances are you are tired, and stressed. And you can’t do your best work tired and stressed. Research on unconscious mental processing says that the pre-frontal cortex in your brain is the part of the brain that gives you new ideas. It works on making connections. But it can only work on coming up with ideas when it is quiet and has no competing work to do. In order to get new ideas you actually have to STOP working.

The working-too-much loop — When you work too much you actually create a work-too-much habit. That makes it hard to stop. Here are some ideas of how you can get out of the loop:

• Remember that habits take at least 30 days to change — So you need to start a new habit now that has you working less.
• Re-calibrate yourself — If you’ve been working 60 or 70 hours a week then 40 feels like you are on vacation. You have to recalibrate and remember what a 40 hour work week feels like. So don’t take the hours down in increments of 2 or 3 or 5. You need to do something drastic to recalibrate. Take it down to 40, or better yet, go on vacation for a week. That will recalibrate what feels normal.
• Accept that you can’t do it all -- If your job is anything like mine you could probably work 24×7 and still not get it all done. So just accept that you can’t do it all, and do the best you can.
• Use the 80/20 rule — Figure out what is the 20% of your work that reaps 80% of the impact, and concentrate on that 20%.
• Take care of yourself first – You’ve heard it before, and I’ll say it again… Take care of yourself (by not working so much) first, and then you will be able to help others (other workers, your boss, and your customers) even better.

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Susan is a guest author at saneworklife.com. If you find this article interesting or helpful, you may want to check out Dr. Weinschenk’s popular blog: What Makes Them Click: www.whatmakesthemclick.net