Here’s Why It’s Hard To Work Less

Patrick Schultz
Jul 23, 2017 · 4 min read

Do you find yourself constantly working with little time to engage in things you want to do more of to enrich your life?

🤔🤔🤔

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

It’s easy for us to work more. To work hours that expand into our evenings, dinners and time for relaxation, friends and family. It’s easy for us to wake up earlier, and it’s easy for us to skip breakfast. Skipping lunch is easy, too.

🔌📬💻

Working Less is Hard

It’s really hard to work less. It’s hard to take time for lunch outside of the office. It’s nearly impossible to find time for a walk during the day. It’s incredibly challenging to find time for the gym, home cooked meals, reading, learning another language or picking up another hobby.

⏳⏱⏰

You control the supply and demand of your own day — and you’re a tough negotiator.

The reason why it is so easy for us to work more is because of what some people define as “being passionate.” You are so passionate that you cannot help but squeeze extra hours out of your day. You look everywhere: under rocks and in all the corners of your day. You dig around for spare time in the 5am hour, you burrow deeper during your lunch hour, and you go deeper still through your evening — without so much as picking up you head.

👨🏻‍💻👨🏻‍💻👨🏻‍💻

But opportunity is knocking, right?

You see the opportunity. You know what success means. You research the market and your competitors. You know which teams are going after which problems in your space. Everyone tells you that you are passionate and an inspiration — others say their work is boring and that they envy you. It’s a “no-brainer” why you are about to breakthrough onto massive success. You feel like you have to dig just a little deeper and push a little harder.

Stop. ⌛️

Well, don’t stop, but slow down. Let’s get some things straight.

Likely Fact:

  • You are passionate
  • You do see great opportunity
  • You know what success “means” (i.e. you have an end in mind)

Likely Fiction:

  • It’s a no-brainer why your product or service is about to take off
  • You know how to get to success

How do I get there?

You need to breathe. You need balance. It’s really hard work to do, but what you need to do is slack off. You need to make evening plans. You can set a routine to workout with a friend. You can create dinner meal schedules to hold yourself accountable to balancing your nutrition, and hey, maybe even learning how to cook something new.

Sounds...fun. But how will that help me?

Those are your outcomes. In order to get there, you first need to define your approach to work less.

Keep the end in mind and walk yourself through getting there. What steps will guide you to success, and why?

🤔🚶🏻💯

You are used to things getting unwieldy. You remain calm and get organizing and start prioritizing things to help your team keep their head on their shoulders. Do yourself a favor and run that exercise for yourself. 📝

You have too much to do and not enough time. 🌋 Sound familiar? Stay calm and get your shit together.

Objectify: don’t let this ambiguous “everything sucks” attitude linger. I’m not discounting, everything might actually suck. But you need to objectively identify all things things that make “everything suck” — you need measurement. Do this for work and non-work life so that you can see the whole picture.

🗓🗂🖊

Identify Goals: know where you want to get to and what is important to you.

A few things that might help:

  • Practice Deep Work
  • Know when to precrastinate: getting started on things well in advance, even at the expense of extra physical, mental or emotional effort
  • Know when to productively procrastinate: which may be particularly conducive to creativity when it leaves us solving problems at moments where unfocused (Grant, Originals). Grant goes on to illustrate that procrastinating from completing problem solving tasks while keeping the problem in mind will lead to more creative problem solving by unlocking different perspectives that result in the best outcomes.
  • Read more. Read about product development, if you like

Adam Grant writes: it’s true the saying goes that the early bird get’s the worm, but let’s not forget the early worm is gotten.

Stay passionate. But slack off a little — it might go a long way. Keep organized and you will get there.

Remember, it’s easier to work more and harder to work less.


If you enjoyed this story, tap the heart below and help others find this helpful article. Spread the community support 🚀

Patrick Schultz

Written by

Product @ Prevail Health // Love rallying teams to solve User / biz problems — particularly in health. Show me the data! Raised in healthcare 👩🏻‍⚕️

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade