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Some stuff my team currently working on: a complete frontend/backend site redesign for NewSpring, an internal web/design work order tracking app (with the goal to build, test, and then give away), an event registration app, and potentially switching our streaming media provider, which includes porting 3+ years of weekly video archives over and replacing a slew of embeds and bad code. All of this is on top of our very daily work (oh, the tyranny of urgent.)
What’s the common thread? Daily work aside, none of these projects are sprints. They will not be completed in the space of a single work week. Actually, we can’t even accomplish the initial thoughts about how to tackle some of these in the space of a single work week. We are in marathon territory. 6 month project paths, long term planning. Slow, steady, methodical, intentional. Like a bunch of semi-sweaty tortoises with low heart rates. This kind of work, and the pacing it requires to make it happen well, demands that everyone on the team is sharp, alert, and passionate. And that means we all need to be rested.
You have a threshold you hit when you need a break. A vacation, a day off, some kind of unplugging from the workplace grind. It’s different for everyone, but once you get near it, it’s time to go sit on the beach somewhere with a fruity umbrella drink in your hand (hypothetically—or whatever it is that equals vacation for you.) If you cross over that threshold and keep working, you’re not passionate about the work, your judgement is impaired, and you make bad decisions. Then your bad decisions force the project into debt (either time, technical, or financial). If you still don’t take a break, you’re pulling all nighters to fix your screw–ups, which is essentially an admission of failure to plan. If you finally do take some vacation, as soon as you return you’re not innovating or tackling something new, you’re working to pay off that debt you created when you should have been resting.
Workaholics will eventually kill long term team productivity. Lone wolf heroes on the permanent all-nighter schedule are toxic. Find your threshold. Go somewhere sunny. Or just go home for the day. Don’t pull your team down because you refuse to take a break.
Over the last year I’ve transitioned my company (we do mostly client work and a couple internal projects) from smaller, quicker projects (volume) to longer, bigger projects (the marathon). I have a tendency to be a workaholic and I’ve noticed how much more careful I have to be to create space and time to rest and keep myself energized for projects that are often taking months. I like the new direction, but the way it forces me to confront my own issues is challenging.
said Grant
at 12:34pm on Friday
Thanks Joshua. Very timely reminder. I hit the threshold, passed it and have been damaging my church team for weeks. Time to make some changes. Billy
said Billy Ritchie
at 4:59am on Saturday
This is brilliant. Extremely timely reminder after an 80 hour work week…
said Michael Mistretta
at 10:27am on Saturday
Oh, believe me, I write from error of experience. Workplace effectiveness does not scale linearly with hours worked per week. It’s counterintuitive, but I swear it’s true.
said Joshua
So what would you say to someone who’s boss doesn’t believe in taking breaks?
said Michael Mistretta
at 1:56pm on Saturday
For Michael: Listen to Joshua. Listen to Joshua. Listen to Joshua…then…take a deep breath…and…find another boss.
If you are on a team and can work out the philosophy as described above amongst the team, superb. If not, and you are on a team whose boss cannot see the proverbial forest because HE/SHE is the workaholic running frantically amongst the trees and expects all to do and be likewise, or even worse, is not and expects all to be the workaholics to make up for the fact that he/she is not, see point one.
Also “from error of experience,” effectiveness will never be recognized by bosses who can only evaluate it by hours worked. Many of us find this out too late (after repeatedly asking ourselves why we are still taking work home or have once again hit or overshot the threshold when we SWORE we would never do it again!).
We also find out that these bosses are completely locked into archaic standards regarding vacation, overtime, comp time, ‘big brother is watching you’ mentalities that fail to recognize that the brain can only endure a certain amount of effort of any kind before it must rest, and that productivity increases if one is both enjoying work, feels empowered to do it, is supported in it, is rewarded for it, and is able to rest from it when needed.
John Ruskin was a champion of the working class and said it best. “In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: They must be fit for it. They must not do too much of it. And they must have a sense of success in it.”
When your brain is fried, it does not matter that more hours are left in a day. What would matter is a boss that could recognize the value of and try to avoid a staff of fried brains. Some jobs SEEM to simply do not allow for fried brains to recharge before the end of a shift. But…if the shifts were not 8 hours rotating 24, if the 8 hours could be shifTED sometimes dependent upon when the worker worked best, if bossess could entertain innovated job sharing ideas, if vacations could be taken when needed not when someone ELSE needed them, if COMP time REALLY existed based on projects not the clock, etc., etc., ad nauseum, et vomitus.
I digress. See point one.
said Mom
at 6:21pm on Saturday
Brilliant post. Excellent. Painful to read and digest – but excellent.
said John
at 10:48pm on Saturday
Meanwhile: Every true Puritan turns over in their grave simultaneously. Its hard when we see a truth that contradicts centuries of culture.
said Anthony
at 11:44am on Sunday
@Michael – it depends on the boss and the situation. Anthony’s reference to the Puritan (neé Protestant) Work Ethic highlights how narrowly focused much of my writing on workplace culture can be. If you’re digging a ditch and working hard at it, the more you do it, the more you get accomplished. But even still, only to an extent—you’ve only got so much energy in a day before you need to rest.
But for me, I’m talking creative work, thought work, non-manual labor work. And with that, i absolutely believe people need to take breaks. Supervisors who don’t see or care about that don’t care about their employees, and that’s nowhere near where I want to work.
said Joshua
Well said. I’m currently in a very demanding creative environment with a great boss. But deadlines are deadlines, and some people still have the very traditional view that working 24/7 = more productivity. I mean, here I am at the office on Labor Day. These same people believe that it’s good to be connected to the work world at all times. I happen to disagree with both of these views.
Mentally detoxing at the end of each day/week/month helps me keep my sanity throughout it all. I think there’s something to be said about working harder less of the time, than hardly working most of the time.
said Michael Mistretta
at 9:34am on Monday