Why we should work 20% less
Office moms, toxic productivity, and the inefficiency of “always-on”
As I was galloping across the internet this week, reading the latest on work and our laboring life, I noticed a surprising number of articles twirling around one very strong message: we work about 20% too much.
In my old life (corporate exec, always-on, overachieving), I definitely worked too much; but I was also rewarded for it (from external kudos and from my own internal compass that needed to feel busy to feel useful). The articles I’m sharing this week explain why so many of us do this, why it seems to have worsened over the pandemic, and why we can (and should) pull our feet off the professional productivity pedal.
So this week, I offer you web-sourced wisdom on “toxic productivity,” the inefficiency of “always-on,” the joys and practicalities of the 4-day work week, and the problem with “office moms.”
8-min read // The New Yorker
In this piece, Cal Newport argues that knowledge workers – aka, almost anyone with a desk job – have a natural tendency towards “chronic busyness,” or filling empty time and space with more things to do. He thinks we take on about 20% more than we really need to at work, which keeps us floating in a “liminal zone” between total Zen and complete burnout:
“This extra twenty per cent provides just enough overload to generate persistent stress—there’s always something that’s late, always a message that can’t wait until the next morning, always a nagging sense of irresponsibility during any moment of downtime. Yet the work remains below a level of unsustainable pain that would force a change.”
Newport’s view is that we need to get better at saying “no” to tasks that aren’t absolutely necessary, but firms also need to get better at managing workflow across teams.
Put Avoiding Toxic Productivity At The Top Of Your To-Do List
6-min read // Vogue
If you agree that we’re doing too much, Clementine Prendergast (the most fabulously British name I’ve heard in a while) explains why. Prendergast argues that we have grown an addiction to “toxic productivity,” or a need to perform and be rewarded at work. Working too much, she argues, can be a coping mechanism we rely on to quell our fears of feeling stuck or still:
“During a global pandemic, when much of what feels normal has been lost and little feels within our control, a fixation on productivity can act as a kind of protective behaviour.”
The good news for those addicted to productivity (most of us) is that research proves overworking is actually bad for performance, leading to more mistakes and less efficiency. So, again, stop grinding so much.
Collaboration Overload Is Sinking Productivity
13-min read // Harvard Business Review
Here’s yet another explanation for why we all feel a little burnt out from the pandemic. According to actual, scientific research, the amount of collaboration work we’ve all been subjected to (which includes meetings, emails, IMs, calls, etc.) has been rising over the decades but spiked dramatically during the pandemic. This has led us to a state the authors call “collaborative overload,” which is not only exhausting but inefficient. (I’ll let you read the article for all the juicy numbers and details).
And similar to what the last two pieces argue, this article says we need to stop “jumping in unnecessarily” on tasks that we really don’t need to do. Again, here is more proof that you don’t need to (and probably shouldn’t) lean in all the time.
6-min read // New York Times
It turns out the affectionate term of “office mom” that we give so many women in the workplace is actually highly problematic. Research done for over a decade shows that women take on more “non-promotable tasks” than men – tasks like baking and doodle polls and birthday cards that are not in a job description and will not contribute in any way to a promotion or a pay raise. And even when we don’t volunteer for them, we’re more likely to be volun-told to do them by our teams and managers. So, ladies, just say no (and send them this article).
For anyone unable to access the NYT article and/or interested in more, read this: It’s not their job to buy you cake (8-min read, NiemanLab)
The Rise Of The Four-Day Work Week
30-min listen // NPR
And for even more evidence that we need to (and can!) work 20% less, I share this excellent podcast on the 4-day work week. The piece interviews an academic, a writer, and a CEO who all explain the benefits of less work (or, as I like to call it, more weekend).
You’ve probably heard that research links a 4-day work week to higher productivity, happier employees, and less wasted time; but what’s really interesting in this podcast is the deep-dive on why we currently work 5 days and how economists and politicians in the 19th and early 20th centuries defined the American Dream as a society where we would work less and earn more.
Fun fact: Economist John Maynard Keynes predicted in the 1930s that we’d make so much technological progress over the 20th century that Americans would only work 2.5 hours a day by the 1980s. Let’s get back on that track.
