226 Why We Work Too Much

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Falling into the trap of working too much is a common place to land. But working too much doesn’t have to be a thing, even though it’s become normal in our society. The good news: working too much is imminently solvable. Get the solution to 15 reasons you might be overworking and what to do about it. 

I use the term overworking to simply mean “working more hours than you want.”

That might mean working 55 hours when you want to work 40 hours. 

That might mean working 35 hours when you only want to work 25 hours. 

And it also doesn’t mean that working 50 hours a week is necessarily overworking. If you want to work 50 hours a week, you might not be overworking. 

15 reasons you might work more hours than you want to:

1. Too many clients
2. Too many underpriced clients
3. Too many types of clients
4. Stuck in hourly pricing in all its forms
5. Systems stuck in your head, nonexistent, incomplete, unreliable, or unfindable.
6. Staff: undertrained, underperforming, or both. 
7. Too much on your calendar: Too many meetings, meetings longer than they need to be; too many programs, groups, networks. 
8. Overworking begets overworking. Long hours are inefficient and error prone. 
9. Doing automatable tasks manually, including digital tasks. 
10. Work is who you are; it’s how you define yourself
11. You don’t know what you’d do with your free time or yourself if you did have time
12. It can be a way to garner sympathy or attention
13. You think you can multitask
14. Avoiding home/personal life
15. Because you allow it by rationalizing it 🙂

It’s good news! Each of these is imminently solvable. You can get on the path to working the hours you want. Start by picking 1 or 2 of the most doable ones to work on, that will have the most impact.