HOW TO WORK LESS AND DO MORE.
Before I started A Year of Productivity, whenever I had more work to do than I had time to do it in — which was pretty much all the time — I would usually put in longer hours so I could finish my tasks.
When you feel like your to- do list is expanding faster than the universe is, working longer hours almost always feels like the best option for getting everything done. On the surface, it makes total sense: the longer you work, the more time you have to do everything in.
But in practice, working longer hours means having less time to refocus and recharge, which leads to more stress and lower energy.
That’s what got me curious, especially as my work quickly began to pile up during my project: is there a better and smarter way to get everything done? Or is working longer hours simply the only option?
Fortunately, I had created the perfect test environment to find out. To get to the bottom of the link between the number of hours spent working and productivity, I designed a productivity experiment to test how my productivity was affected by working both insane hours and relaxed hours. For four weeks I alternated between working 90 hours one week, and 20 the next to see how working both extreme hours and shorter hours affected how much I got done every day.
After slogging t hrough one 90- hour week and one 20- hour week, I quickly discovered something breathtaking when I was looking through my experiment logs: I accomplished only a bit more working 90- hour weeks than I did i n my 20- hour weeks.
This was easily one of the more surprising findings I made during my project. It went against everything I knew about productivity; I had always assumed that working longer hours gave you more time to accomplish everything you need to get done.
On the surface, it made little sense — until I looked beyond how much time I invested in my work, and instead looked at how much energy and attention I invested in it.
When I invested more time in my work during my insane weeks, my work became a lot less urgent; on a minute- byminute basis, I invested less energy and focus into everything I intended to get done. But when I had a limited amount of time in my 20-hour weeks, I forced myself to expend significantly more energy and focus over that shorter period of time so I could get everything done I had to do. Of course, all the pressure I felt during this experiment came from me — I didn’t have a boss, team or any large, looming deadlines around the corner. But the lesson is just as potent: by controlling how much time you spend on a task, you control how much energy and attention you spend on it.
The second invaluable lesson I discovered from the experiment was that even though on paper I accomplished about the same in both long and short weeks, I felt twice as productive working longer hours. Even though I wasn’t spending my attention or energy wisely, I sure as hell felt productive.
It’s hard not to feel productive when you’re busy all day long. But busyness does not translate into productivity if it doesn’t lead you to accomplish anything.
Before I started my project, when I reflected on how productive I was at the end of each day and each week I usually made a critical mistake: I looked at how busy I was instead of how much I accomplished. Productivity is an elusive idea; because it’s hard to get a handle on just how much you accomplish every day, looking at how busy you are is a quick, down and dirty, and usually inaccurate shortcut to seeing how productive you are.
In the middle of my 20-hour weeks, I couldn’t help but feel guilty that I wasn’t as busy as I thought I should be. Because I was working a shorter amount of time, I perceived myself as less productive, and I became unnecessarily hard on myself because of it — even though I was spending a ton of energy and focus on what I had to get done, and I was accomplishing about the same amount of work.
This is a trap almost all of us fall into. When you have more work to do than you have time to do it in, it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking you have only two options: keep working a standard workweek and fall behind, or begin putting in more hours to get everything done.
But as I discovered during this experiment, there is a third, less obvious option that is much more powerful than spending more time on your work: learn to invest more energy and attention into your work, so you can get the same amount done in a fraction of the time.
When I worked 20- hour weeks, something magical began to happen: I forced myself to expend more energy over a shorter period of time so I could get my work done more quickly.
Whenever I had an important article to write, speech to prepare or project to crank out throughout the rest of the project, instead of scheduling an entire afternoon to work on the task, I scheduled just two or three hours for the task. And whenever I had a good handle on how much time, attention and energy a task would take, I got it done. With a limited amount of time, I had no other choice.
If limiting how much time you spend on a task lets you get it done more efficiently, does the same rule apply to working fewer hours in general?
Intriguingly, several studies suggest that it does.
If you were to work just one hour a week, no matter how well you managed your energy and attention over that hour, you wouldn’t be all that productive. One hour of work a week simply isn’t enough time to accomplish much of anything important. But your productivity also becomes shot when you work for too long.
Working 90 hours a week for any longer than one week is a recipe for burnout. Doing so leaves you with hardly any time to recharge your energy levels and focus.
So where is the sweet spot f or how many hours you should work every week?
I settled into a nice equilibrium of working 46- hours a week, which was enough time for me to get everything done, while taking needed breaks to recharge my energy levels and attention over the course of the day. But studies show that the ideal number of hours to work every week is even lower than that. They suggest that optimal number is roughly 35 to 40 hours.
On the surface, 35 to 40 hours seems low. When your to- do list is always longer then the number of hours you have in the day, you might feel guilty if you began working 40 hours a week, especially if the people around you continued to work 50, 60, or even more.
But studies show that after roughly 35 or 40 hours, your productivity begins to plummet.
In the short term, there are huge productivity gains to be had by working extra hours, particularly when deadlines are fast approaching. Sometimes there is simply a ton of work to do, and you need to dedicate more time to do that work. But in the long term, working longer hours is a recipe for disaster — especially when they lead you to have less time to cultivate your attention and energy.
After 35 to 40 hours of work, s t udies s how t hat your marginal productivity begins to drop, until “at approximately eight 60- hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40- hour weeks.” The same study found that with 70 and 80- hour weeks, you reach the same break- even point in just three weeks. In working 90 hours a week, I stumbled upon that break- even point in just two weeks, even though the two weeks were separated by a luxurious 20- hour week. But often even in the short term, working longer hours can decrease your productivity. One study found that when you work 60- hour weeks, in order to accomplish one more hour of work, you need to work two hours of overtime. Another study found that your productivity “falls off a cliff after 55 hours — so much so that someone who puts in 70 hours produces nothing more with those extra 15 hours.”
Beyond a certain point, you simply begin to do more busywork than important or meaningful work. You’ll feel a lot less guilty, like I did when working 90 hours a week, but you’ll also be a lot less productive.
In the time economy, when work required a lot less energy and attention, and there was a direct correlation between how many hours you worked and how much you produced, working insane hours would have made you much more productive. Today, though, the equation has changed. Since your time, attention, and energy all contribute to your productivity, working long hours can destroy your productivity because it compromises your energy and focus.
In the knowledge economy, the most productive people don’ t only manage t heir time well — they also manage their energy and attention well. Limiting how much time you spend on your work — whether on an important task or on your work in general — is a great way to spend your time, attention, and energy wisely. Depending on how much control you have over when you work, setting limits for how long you work in general — even reasonable l i mits l i ke working for 35 hours — may not be realistic. But whenever possible, it’s worth setting limits for how long you work so you spend more energy on what you have to get done, not more valuable time.
I had always assumed that working longer hours gave you more time to accomplish everything you need to get done. I was wrong
Excerpted from The Productivity Project: Accomplishing More by Managing Your Time, Attention, and Energy Better by Chris Bailey. Copyright © 2016 Chris Bailey. Published in 2016 by Random House Canada, a division of Penguin Random House of Canada Limited, and simultaneously in the United States by Crown Business, and imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York All rights reserved.