5 reasons to give up on productivity and start living

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Leaving the office on time and at least sometimes forgetting about work is vital.

You spend more time at work than at home. Relatives remember you only from five-year-old photographs, because there is no time to visit or take pictures. On your pages on social networks, only motivating quotes about the need to work harder and more productively, because those who do not spend the night in the office will end their days in a homeless shelter. Most likely, you took a wrong turn somewhere, and here's why.

1. The future you work for may not come

You, of course, have read a lot of advice that you need to work hard in your youth so that you do not count on payments from the state in retirement, but ride like cheese in butter: drink cocktails on the seaside and live in a luxurious mansion outside the city.

Look at the statistics on life expectancy in Russia: 66.5 years for men and 77.06 - for women. Find the average salary - 37, 7 thousand rubles.

Now understand how little time you have left for cocktails if you are a man. Realize how little chance you have of earning a 22-year-old luxury if you are a woman.

The plan can be implemented if you do not work a lot, but earn a lot.

To permanently give up the idea of forgetting about the present life for the sake of a happy old age, ask your grandparents how many times they lost all their savings. Even if you are in the 146% of the optimistic electorate, money should be approached from the point of view of the harsh reality: whatever you earn can be used against you.

2. You should focus not on the tired, but on the successful

According to surveys, programmers, when looking for a job, put the opportunity to maintain a balance between work and life in the first place among the selection criteria. They want flexible schedules, remote work options, and that the company values the quality of the work, not the time they spend in the office. And programmers can hardly be suspected of lack of intelligence and analytical skills. And their salaries are, on average, higher than those of other Russians.

If you have been walking along the slippery path of a workaholic for several days, evaluate your achievements. Your name on the Forbes list will hint that you can already slow down. But the absence of any significant results will say the same. If you have not received a significant return from the murderous work without days off, then for what is it all?

3. Overwork is the cause of disease

You set a goal for yourself and go to it, agreeing to any processing and coming to the office on weekends. It is worth adequately assessing how much you actually have to plow and whether you will stand. If you wish, you can earn money for a vacation in a couple of months, save up for an apartment in a nice area of Moscow without initial capital - at least 10 years, and this is under an optimistic scenario.

If you can predict with confidence what will happen in 10 years, you are probably a successful astrologer or fortune-teller and are rowing money with a shovel. If not, go to the classics.

John Lennon said: "Life is what happens to us while we make plans." And he himself, by the way, probably put off something for a period after 40 years.

But we, unlike Lennon, are not threatened by Mark David Chapman, but a more likely death from diseases of the circulatory system or the nervous system, as well as external causes (car accidents, suicides, and so on). Moreover, the more you work, the more actively you create all the conditions to replenish the sad statistics.

Workaholism is directly linked to depression and other mental disorders that can lead to suicide. For the Japanese, known for their pathological zeal for productivity, death from a stroke or heart attack in the workplace has a separate name - karoshi. You work for a better life and at the same time take away what you already have.

4. Laziness is the engine of progress

Bad news for those who couldn't find time to read this text for a month because of their busy work. Morten Hansen, professor of management at the University of California, Berkeley, believes that the best workers share four qualities that have nothing to do with hard labor seven days a week:

1. They are looking for the easiest and fastest way to solve the problem.
2. Instead of willingly taking more and more new projects from their boss, they focus on existing ones, but understand them deeper.
3. They analyze and prioritize work results to understand what needs to be paid less attention.
4. They always approach work with an eye to the future, so that every routine task requires less and less effort.

So diligence leads you to success much more slowly than striving to optimize work processes.

5. Fashion for workaholism is not beneficial for you

It's nice, of course, leaving the office four hours before you have to return to it, open social networks and write about it. Let all your classmates know how successful you are. Workaholism is now socially approved, and burning at work is as trendy as Vetements hoodies. If a person has never posted a selfie from the office on a weekend, then he is not working.

But slow down. Constant employment does not say anything about your success and relevance. Maybe you just can't get the job done in eight hours, or you combine it with a night watchman's job. And even if you actually spend every minute on projects, you still look like that weird guy (or girl) with whom it is impossible to communicate.

In general, you are no different from militant mothers who can only talk about the child. Only instead of a baby you have a job. And if moms have an excuse in the form of hormonal changes, then you have nothing to cover.

It is beneficial for your employer that you work around the clock. And you risk losing more than you gain.

Humanity, by the way, for decades went to the eight-hour workday through strikes, prisons and revolutions, to lie on the sofa with TV series on Saturday. So don't deny social accomplishment and go to the movies on weekends, not work. And turn off the phone. It's time to stop being useful and start living.