I tend to be a bit of a workaholic. I try to reform all the time and most of the time I successfully do for a little while. Honestly, it’s hard though. When you love the work you do, for me it’s writing, it’s difficult not to do it all the time. At times, even though you love it, it can get to be too much. That’s what’s happened to me recently. I’ve been working too hard.

For me it was obvious to everyone else in my family, but not so obvious to me. Sometimes you get so wrapped up in work and completing a task that you don’t even realize what might be missing from your life. On an average day, I’ve been working from 10 in the morning until midnight with two one hour breaks to eat meals. Working at home was supposed to put an end to being overworked. Usually it does, but sometimes I slip back into old habits.

Here are some ways to tell if you’re overworked.

1. You stop doing things you enjoy in order to have more time to work.
2. You skip exercise.
3. Your family gets used to the fact that you’re never available.
4. You feel tired all the time.
5. You’ve had a cold for months that you just can’t seem to shake.
6. You are very irritable and get angry over trivial matters.
7. You suddenly realized that you don’t seem to have friends anymore.
8. You’re constantly trying to figure out how to squeeze more work hours into the day.
9. You think about work when your in the bathroom.
10. You’ve lost touch with news and popular culture.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If so, you may be overworked.

Overwork isn’t a virtue.

Hard work is rewarded, right? In our society, people value hard work. The more you work the better you are, right?

That’s that way I was raised. My parents worked a lot. My father is a musician and my mother is a social worker. My father freelanced, but he was always working and my mother usually worked two jobs. She’d work during the day at her normal social working job and then at night she’d teach at a college. Working a lot  was seen as a kind of virtuous pursuit. Growing up, I learned this lesson well.

My mother talks about how hard she works in a matter-of-fact way that’s kind of like bragging. “Everyone in the office is complaining that 115 cases are way too many to handle, but I’ve had a caseload of 227 for a year and I’m handling it with no problem,” she’d say to me over the phone.

If you’re working too hard, what are you gaining? Are you getting more of the most important things in life?

More value needs to be put on family and friends and enjoying yourself. If you’re not able to spend time with your family, if you’re not able to do the things you love, what are you working for? I’m sure you’ve heard that overdone saying, “Work to live. Don’t live to work.”

Having a good work ethic is great. Everyone should have a good work ethic, but being overworked is not a virtue. You need to be able to draw the line and notice when you’re doing way too much.

You shouldn’t be consistently trying to find more time to work. You should be trying to work in less time. This can be achieved by making some simple adjustments in the way you work.

Honestly, I haven’t had a job where I was required to work for a set amount of hours for quite a long time, so this part of the post might not be too relevant to people in that situation. I’m just writing from my experience. For much of my adult life, I’ve been self-employed so that’s really all I know. If someone reading this has suggestions for people who work more traditional jobs, please feel free to post them in the comments below.

Here are some ways to get your work done without overworking.

Give yourself definite work hours. Don’t make these hours crazy long. Decide what a reasonable amount of time would be to you and only work within those hours. Once that time is up, stop working. This may seem revolutionary to you, but try it. Once it’s 6 o’clock or whatever time you choose stop working. Don’t think about work. Don’t talk about it. Instead, do something else. Even if you love your job and it is your passion, you need to do something else to make sure you’re a well rounded person. You need to be able to hold a non-work-related conversation.

Only check your emails once during the day. Give yourself time in the morning to deal with emails. Once that time is over leave the emails alone. The time you spend checking your email could be spent getting work done. Checking your email over and over is just a way of avoiding getting the work done. It adds more hours to your workday. Do it once and be done with it for the day.

Stop multitasking. You’re trying to do a million things at once and maybe you feel great because you think you’re really getting tons done. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but you’re not. Read this.

Take breaks. If your head is getting all jumbled, take a break! Don’t try to work through it. You’ll just take longer to get the task done and it won’t be done as well. Relax for a minute and then come back to it. The same is true if you’re sleepy. If you’re yawning every few minute, take a nap. You’ll work much better if you do.

My husband bought a sudoku puzzle book and he’s been timing himself doing the puzzles in different situations. He does things like this all the time, it’s a little weird, but sometimes he comes up with useful information I can use in a post. He’s found that if he tries to do a puzzle when he’s feeling tired it takes more than twice as long as it does if he tries to do one when he’s well rested. He’s also found that doing a puzzle in a distracting environment takes adds about 10 minutes on to his average time. This leads into my next point.

Find a space to work. Go into a room with no distractions, shut the door and get your work done. Dedicating time and a space to work uninterrupted will help you get the job done.

Following these simple rules will help you work smarter. You’ll get more done in less time and still have time to do something else.

Photo by moriza

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