I just launched a new career column over at BNET (CBS’s online business portal) today. The column is called “168 Hours” and will appear on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Today’s post is called “Stop Lying About How Much You Work,” and deals with our tendency to talk about 80-hour weeks, as if we were actually working 80 hours. In the vast majority of cases, we aren’t. This workweek inflation would be funny, except that it has real consequences. For starters, when people talk about 80-hour weeks, it encourages people to stay late, wandering around, ordering delivery, etc. Even if all this hanging around only adds up to 60 hours, it’s still inefficient. And more importantly, complaints about 80-hour weeks scare off people who are willing to work hard but not stupidly. You want those people working for you!
Anyway, please check out the column and if you’re not getting enough of me here, now there will be more to love.
So how much work is full-time? How much work is necessary to reach one’s goals. How to know when to stop working for the day?
A 40-hour workweek with one hour lunch breaks is 35 hours.
For me as an entrepreneur this is an important issue… as well as as a working parent b/c my ability to find blocks of time that are long and interrupted is more limited so I have to be more strategic in knowing which projects fit where…