Long Hours Can Make You Lazy?

We’ve all been there — at work, there is a task you may or may not think is important, but you sure as hell know your manager thinks it is. That last day before the deadline, you will put in work for an hour or two longer than you’re supposed to, just because you know that the finished product has to be perfect. You might put off lunch for 2–3 hours if your body can take it, while your eyes sink into your head and your body sinks into your chair.

I live for work’s footrest

I take off my shoes and rub-a-dub-dub

If I work for too long

I get wrinkles from work’s tub

While you’re at it, you might just want to stay late to do extra LinkedIn Learning. After all, once you propel yourself ahead, you’ll have the tools to prevent yourself from staying late! That is a stroke of pure genius and is probably true.

When I say “you”, I really mean myself, and when I say “probably true”, I really mean it is untrue. I have streaks of weeks where I stay late — it’s pretty bad because I don’t have a time limit — I already bring my dinner to work, so hunger won’t bring me out of that cube farm. It’s the mindset that comes with defeat — I recognize that it’s no longer possible to produce a product refined to my true abilities, unless I stay late.

But this is self defeating. I always manage to find more work for myself — so the LinkedIn Learning doesn’t help me get ahead, it helps me find a larger lake to drown in. Working longer hours does help me find ways to solve problems, but it also hinders me in an important human way.

Working longer hours in this way will prevent you AND me from developing vital time management skills. Time management is the ability that makes sure I arrive on time at the airport to pick my girlfriend up. It’s the skill that doesn’t let me miss a flight or a birthday party, and helps me schedule my MoyChoy posts. If I haven’t already, this is a good time to mention that I have a blog on Medium with my wonderful girlfriend, Meziah, called MoyChoy, where we talk about development and lessons that we learn. What’s that? You already know about it? Oops, I forgot you are already on our blog!

Back to the time management — time management at work is important for two reasons. First, it prevents people at all stages of their career from unnecessarily working themselves to death. Second, it encourages employees to be more well-rounded, developing relationships with their communities, volunteering, having kids, hanging out with friends, and learning about stuff we care about, but might not do in our work lives. This has been really important to me because as I have traveled away from my home, I always recognize that relationships that I have built have made every single trip worth it. I have had the pleasure of volunteering my musical talents, my soccer ball-catching hands, and my mouth, especially if my friends are baking something. I think all of us have fulfillment outside of work that we seek in one of those ways I listed above, or maybe we haven’t found it.

So am I going to push out inferior product at work? Definitely not!

If having a life outside of work is one of the benefits of not working all of the time, so is the brain and talent development inside work. To recognize that there are no extra hours to utilize in the rest of the workday is to recognize that you must finish your work with high quality in a shorter time. For most of us, this means a more intense planning stage, pitching ideas to coworkers, getting early buy-in from customers, and researching creative methods that have shorter paths to the destination.

I can’t leave out communication skills. Committing to work means you promise to get it done by a deadline. When you think about your work only within confined hours, it also forces you to communicate with your supervisor. You have to think about what other tasks you have on your plate. Having these conversations with your supervisor strengthens that interpersonal bond, and forces you to

STAND UP FOR YOURSELF.

This point is crucial for me to point out to myself. Too often, early in our careers as millennials, we believe that we have so much to prove, and we have to grind, grind, GRIND and that is the only choice. In the big picture, a look at management and others advanced in their careers says that they can also negotiate to get their way, sell their work, and realize the limitations and potential of future prospects.

When I ask people at my workplace, they say that managers made it to management for a reason. It is obvious who is going to advance almost from the get-go. It’s about time we all start becoming who we want to be right now. If we act like professionals, and have professional expectations of ourselves, we will become professionals. Don’t practice giving up your life for work, because practice makes perfect.