Fundraiser, you are working too much!

You put in another 60-hour work week?

Are you a hero?

Or are you wasting your life and your talents?

You might be surprised, according to this post at the Publication Coach blog: Why working LESS makes you more productive.

The facts are surprising:

A Stanford study … found that productivity drops off sharply after about 50 hours a week. Push past 55, and the extra hours contribute essentially nothing. You’re not producing more work…. The reason has to do with how our brains handle complex thinking. We have a limited pool of attention and cognitive energy. When the pool runs dry — and it runs dry faster than most of us admit — we don’t actually solve problems. We move symbols around on screens and answer emails we didn’t really need to answer.

Repeated experiments with four-day work-weeks show that people get as much done in four days as they did in five. Often, they accomplish more.

Why does working less help you get more done? According to the post:

• You stop padding your day with unnecessary meetings.
• You prioritize better because you have to.
• You rest, which is when your brain consolidates what you’ve learned.
• You return to hard problems with a fresh perspective.

I know how things come up that require bursts of long hours. Professionals can roll with this. But that should not be normal!

Not everyone has control over their workday to make these things a reality. But if you do — or if you have influence over your own or others’ workdays — please consider this. You can get more done in less time, with less stress, than you might think.