Achieving More, While Working Less
The Law of Diminishing Returns.
Most of us live in a culture that glorifies long hours, so it’s understandable that we make the (mostly inaccurate) assumption that we’re actually accomplishing more when we work more hours. On a small scale, of course we are. We write more in an hour than we do in ten minutes. But do we accomplish more when we work a 60-hour week rather than a 40-hour week? Probably not.
Henry Ford is credited with the revolutionary idea of giving workers weekends off. He’s often held up as a champion of workers’ rights, but Ford advocating for shorter working hours was actually a result of research, and findings, on the law of diminishing returns.
Ford found that 40 hours a week was the optimal time workers should be working to ensure high levels of productivity, and that working beyond that amount of time, resulted in ‘diminishing returns’ or less work being produced per hour. And that was based on repetitive, assembly line work. If your work is creative, and requires periods of reflection and deep thinking time, it’s probably a lot less.
We work best when we build in time to recover, or as top Medium writer and author, Benjamin Hardy, puts it:
“For best results: Spend 20% of your energy on your work and 80% of your energy on recovery and…
