When Will We Say Enough?

During my travels last week, my mom’s 83 year old cousin was lamenting how her son sometimes worked Saturday and Sundays for his M-F, 40-hour-work week. I nodded at her dismay and said, “I think that’s just business in today’s world. You do more and more and it requires more of us.” A piece of me accepts that as the norm and a piece of me balks at the way we’ve allowed our work to creep steadily into much-needed down time.

As I thought of her comment, I realized how much time we really do spend at work. I work a flexible schedule, but the reality is I put in far more hours than I should. For example today I started work at 7 am. I’m on the road and needed to make sure my conference material worked with the equipment in my room. It’s now 9 p.m. and I’ve worked close to 14 hours. I’ll continue until my flight takes off because it’s best to spend time away from home working so I can be fully home once I get there. Right?

Maybe not. There’s many days and weeks where I’m wondering how I’ll get everything done I need to from a work perspective. I push and push to get through but the reality is, my work will never end, so I’m pushing against an invisible wall I’ll never move.

There’s a lot of talk about mindfulness and taking care of yourself these days, but until the structure in which we work changes, I don’t see how we’ll conform to a more mindful, resting attitude. It’s like the workplace that doesn’t tie their outcomes to their performance reviews. No teeth to the requirement means no compliance. Until organizations have ties to their values that put down times as a priority, we won’t see business objectives change.

Just because businesses aren’t going to change, doesn’t mean we are helpless in this process. We still control ourselves and how we react. While organizations don’t have an incentive to ask us to work less, we can look to our own values to help us choose differently.

It’s up to me to set my own boundaries. This is incredibly hard to do. As I get older, my body is setting the boundaries for me. I’m exhausted by Friday nights. I get migraines toward the end of weeks where I have way too much going on. But what if I fixed the root cause and took things off my schedule? What if we collectively asked:

· What realistically needs to happen in our work lives and what can we take off the schedule?

· What if we played hooky for a day?

· What if we simply evaluated our jobs and looked at the number of hours in a week and prioritized what we could do in 40 hours?

I’m pretty sure the world wouldn’t end. I’m pretty sure someone wouldn’t die if I did less. Quite seriously, I have to wonder if I’ve developed an addiction to work. Dr. Phil always used to ask, “How’s that working for you?” Many days it’s clearly not working for me, and I can’t control the world, but I can control me. So what am I going to do? What are you going to do this week to create some margin?

I’d love your ideas and thoughts.

 

Keynote speaker, trainer, and consultant, Sarah Gibson, helps organizations leverage the power of communication, teamwork and diversity to improve engagement and transform teams. To buy her book or inquire about her speaking programs, please visit www.sarahjgibson.com.