Taking Care of Business, the Email Newsletter of the Center for Career and Business Development

Volume 4, No. 10

Friday, October 14, 2005

Breaking the Pattern of Overwork
by Beverly Ryle

nlike the frog who failed to realize he was in boiling water until it was too late, I fortunately became aware that I was chronically tired before the downward spiral this form of self-abuse inevitably triggers had taken me to the danger point.

The breakthrough came when I participated in a leadership program with Joan Goldsmith, where I was introduced to the self-assessment survey in the book Tired of being Tired: Rescue, Repair, Rejuvenate by Jesse Hanley and Nancy Deville (for details, see last month’s column).

As soon as I admitted to myself that I was not tired because of any specific set of circumstances, but because I was trying to do more that was humanly possible, I stopped justifying the need to work more.

After I read the book, I began to open myself up to the possibility that the problem could be me, not my workload.

I knew just enough to be acutely aware of how many times a day I said I was tired, or reached for a cup of tea or coffee to perk me up.

Gradually the discomfort of seeing how these entrenched patterns were hurting me helped me to think and speak about “being tired” differently, and to establish new criteria for productivity.

Change How You Talk About Fatigue
I learned that, rather than saying I was “burnt out”, which described my condition in mechanistic terms—people don’t “burn out”, machinery does—I should say that I was “starving for rest and renewal.”

I could also try replacing phrases like, “I’m exhausted,” or “I’m overwhelmed,” with something a bit less sweeping, something more direct and immediate like,“I need a nap!”

Being honest with myself in how I verbalized what was happening to me helped strip away the illusion that by sheer determination I could continue to plug myself in and endlessly produce.

Admitting that I was a person and not a machine helped me accept that I needed to get enough sleep, exercise, and maintain health-sustaining habits. Only when I was able to do so could I work within my human capacity rather than against it.

How many hours a day do you feel you are truly productive? Most people would say 6 to 8.

Then what are you doing with the rest of a long day at the office? Answering emails? Playing telephone tag? Participating in diversionary conversations? Sitting zoned out in front of the computer screen?

If you are working 2, 4, or 6 hours longer, are you actually getting 2, 4, or 6 hours of extra work done?

Your answer to this question may help you make better choices about how you spend your “off peak” hours.

Running

Look At What You're Measuring
People who overwork tend to know a lot about making their numbers because this is usually what they base their performance on. They use such measurements to justify pushing themselves to try to cross a goal line that is always moving farther away, or jump over a bar that gets gets higher the closer they come to it.

What they often do not see is their own part in setting up these objectives. The goals they are trying to achieve are narrowing their view of life to the point where other goals of equal or greater importance are out of sight.

To achieve the balance we all say we want to have in our lives, we need to establish our own critera in addition to those set up by our bosses or clients.

We can do this by deciding what percentage of our available time and energy we want to devote to work. For one of my clients, it’s 70%. She needs to save the remaining 30% for herself, for things like walking her dog several times a day.

Because she has consciously put in place her own metrics, she knows when she is “over budget” and can make adjustments accordingly.

A couple of my own measurements are: how many nights a week do I get to leave the office by 6 PM and watch “The News Hour” on PBS? How often do I spend the evening watching a video because I'm too brain dead to do anything but plant myself in front of televesion?

Create your own measurements. Only you can decide what’s important to you and make what you value real in your life.

Three Things You Can Do
Hanley and Deville have a number of suggestions that have helped me, one day at time, reinforce my commitment to breaking out of pattern of overwork. Here are three of them:

Dare to make your health a priority for a week. I began this challenge by mapping out what my work day would look like if my well-being came first, and then scheduling a day in which I could “practice” it. To my amazement, I managed to work in the garden after lunch, take a 15-minute nap in the afternoon, read an article in a professional journal, and still accomplish my goals for the day!
Choose 2 or 3 physical activities you love and “play” at them 3 times a week for 20-30 minutes. Fall has been a great time for me to experiment with new ways to get out of my head and into my body by taking a bike ride or walking on the beach before dinner. This has become so enjoyable and revitalizing that I have decided to buy snowshoes so I’ll have no excuse not to get out and move when winter comes.
Examine the “shoulds” that keep you in a overwork pattern. When I reflected on the messages about overwork I carry in my head, I realized that I learned as the child of a parent who grew up in the Depression that work always had to come before rest or pleasure. As a result I felt I could not leave the office until everything was done, or enjoy the weekend until all the house chores were completed. I have come to understand that the strong work-ethic I am grateful to have inherited from my parents will not disappear if I meet a friend for breakfast on Saturday morning before I do the laundry. The tasks will still be there when I come back to them, and I will be able to do them more efficiently because I am refreshed.

Also in this issue ...

Quote-of-the-Month

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As we move forward into the 21st century it’s pretty obvious to just about everyone that work isn’t what it used to be. Whether we work for ourselves, or for someone else, or are in transition, things are changing rapidly and we’re caught in a shift of seismic proportions. Many things are being demanded of us, and it’s going to require more than just new skills to survive and thrive. We’re going to need to learn how to get serious about taking care of the business of our professional lives.

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Most Driven people’s lives are dictated by their calendars. They first create the commitments that structure their lives, and then they work like crazy to meet their obligations. All of us can make time for one or a few activities a week that we know will bring us some enjoyment and will be good for our adrenal health. Some of us are able to set aside a day a week for golf. Most of us have to settle for fewer and shorter activities. Since your health and happiness are priorities to you, schedule in at least one activity a week and then follow through on it. I have found that having a couple of partners who enjoy the same activity can help Driven people live up to their obligation to have fun.

The idea here is to schedule activities for the pure sake of having fun, not to further your career or to make you or your family more popular. Your fun activities are supposed to make you feel better. Whatever activities you choose—going to the movies, playing tennis, baking cookies with your kids—do them because they make you feel better, not just because they make you look better, satisfy other people’s wants or needs, or promote your career. In other words, if you would get more satisfaction on a Saturday morning by staying home and washing your car than by going off to play golf with someone from work, then washing your car is the healthy and wise choice. But please do not wash your car just because you want your neighbors to admire it. This time is for you.

Tired of Being Tired
Jesse Hanley, MD
&
Nancy Deville

40 Oak Leaf Rd
PO Box 156
North Eastham, Cape Cod, MA 02651-0156
508.240.3532

www.SuccessOnYourOwnTerms.com

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The stick illustrations in this issue are by Eloise Morley.
Her email address is eloisemorley@earthlink.net