Working hard is psychological, not economical

Have you ever felt guilty for leaving the office early?

Or judged yourself for not working hard enough? Like you should have been doing more for your team to earn your paycheck?

That’s totally normal. This emotional cocktail inebriates all of us, myself included. It’s part of our country’s cultural fabric. Living in a capitalist society, the story we’ve all agreed on is that there is a direct correlation between how many hours we work and how effective we are.

Doing more always equals doing better, right?

That’s the protestant work ethic built our great nation and must be upheld, god damn it. Not surprisingly, the centers for disease control published a report that summarizes recent scientific findings concerning the relationship between overtime and extended work shifts on worker health and safety.

Turns out, putting in more than ten hours a day is associated with numerous risks including cardiovascular issues, relationship problems, weight gain, depression, higher injury rate, hormonal imbalances and higher stress. And this isn’t about the ideal workweek length, either.

People and organizations have been debating that magic number since the invention of the automobile in the early nineteenth century. And it’s such a relative metric with so many variables that the argument, ironically, isn’t a good use of our time.

Because the issue is more psychological than it is economical.

And so, workers need to learn how to do two things. One, learning how to speak to themselves in compassionate, encouraging ways when guilty feelings surface.

And two, setting healthy boundaries around their work schedules. Let’s look at two personal creativity management tools to help you do so.

The first one is a favorite of mine called zooming out. You widen your lens to get perspective on the complete picture of your situation.

For example, say you feel guilty about leaving work early or taking an impromptu day off after a long week. Zoom out by interrupting that inner puritanical voice with a few compassionate and honest questions:

*Would your victory log agree that you haven’t done enough this week?

*Are you not a professional who creates value everywhere they go and worthy of getting adequate rest?

*Are you really letting your team down by leaving early, or is cultural gravity just causing you to unfairly judge yourself?

Questions like these can help you tell a healthier story about your schedule. What’s more, they will enable you to quickly view events in their true relations or relative importance.

That brings us to the second tool, called macro pacing. Giving yourself permission to work at your own healthy tempo, velocity and trajectory. This boundary is a powerful way to free yourself from the inherited cultural guilt of not overworking. Because theoretically, almost anything you work on, you could continue working on it forever, and still find more things to improve.

That’s the nature of modern technology. It’s never been easier to make an infinite amount of edits to our creative projects. Which means it’s never been harder to set boundaries.

This is where pacing comes into play. You decide for yourself and by yourself, based on an unarguable objective metric like time of day, number of words, or quantity of tasks, that you’re done. Period.

No comments, questions, complaints or excuses. When the clock hits five, peace out. Or when you finish this last paragraph, peace out. Trust that the work will still be there tomorrow, know that the world will not tilt on its axis if you leave. And go make the rest of your life happy.

These two tools, zooming out and macro pacing, are powerful weapons against the inevitable guilt that creative professionals have to contend with on a daily basis.

Use them wisely, and you’ll be sure not to act against your best interests.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve written enough today.

Would your victory log agree that you haven’t done enough this week?