I’m not sure if you know who Seth Godin is, but I enjoy reading his blogmail (He wrote Linchpin among other works). Here’s a thought he had recently that got me thinking.
What would happen if you were prohibited from working more than five hours a day? What would you do? How would you use those five hours to become indispensable in a different way?
For those of us who are full-fledged or borderline workaholics, that’s quite an interesting thought. No matter what we say, we seem to convey the idea that we are invaluable by virtue of the fact we work so many hours. The more we work, the more tempting it is to imagine that we are successful. There’s nothing wrong with hard work, of course, but are hard work and long hours alone the measure of our effectiveness?
The problem with using time as your lever for success is that it doesn’t scale very well. 20 hours a day at work is not twice as good as 18, and you certainly can’t go much beyond 24…
Hmmmm. So how would you spend your time if you could only work five hours a day and no more?
Who’s Winning? You, or the Clock?
For those of us who are full-fledged or borderline workaholics, that’s quite an interesting thought. No matter what we say, we seem to convey the idea that we are invaluable by virtue of the fact we work so many hours. The more we work, the more tempting it is to imagine that we are successful. There’s nothing wrong with hard work, of course, but are hard work and long hours alone the measure of our effectiveness?
Hmmmm. So how would you spend your time if you could only work five hours a day and no more?