Are you a workaholic or are you just engaged at work? Does your company enable workaholics, and, if so, how do we change that? These are the types of questions that Malissa Clark answers in her new book, Never Not Working. I’ll admit, by the end of it, I was questioning if I was a workaholic for the number of hours I sometimes put in. Below are the three biggest takeaways I had:
1. Workaholic vs Engaged Worker
The first thing Clark talks about is defining a workaholism. While some of us think that anyone who works long hours must be a workaholic, there is actually quite a bit more to it. I myself tend to work between 50 and 55 hours per week because there is always plenty of things that need doing. However, in addition to long hours, workaholics suffer from a few other signs, such as compulsivity to work, constantly thinking about work, and having negative feelings when not working.
Engaged workers, on the other hand, may put in more hours than normal, but they also make time to step away from work. More importantly, engaged workers have the ability to “leave work at the office” and enjoy time with friends and family without worrying about what is waiting for them. The key insight here, for me, is that workaholism, just like many other aspects of our personality, exists on a spectrum. It is not as cut-and-dried as “you either are or aren’t a workaholic.”
One myth that has made its rounds for decades is that there are “good” types of workaholics. Clark summarily dismisses this in the very first chapter. There can be workaholics that truly enjoy what they do, but research has shown even those people have higher depressive feelings, sleep problems, and health complaints than non-workaholics.
2. Redefine Your Urgent/Reinvent Your To-Do List
If you do feel like you fall on the spectrum of workaholic, the book offers a lot of advice on ways to notice and counteract those workaholic tendencies. A to-do list turns out to be a great aid in addressing workaholism. First, the to-do list itself can be reinvented. Instead of only having dozens of work-related items that must be done this week, a good practice is to place a fixed number of non-work items at the top of the list, ensuring that you focus on some non-work related tasks during your week.
There is no better feeling than having a weekly to-do list with dozens of items crossed off as accomplishments. Crossing off those non-work related activities will feel just as pleasant, and it’ll probably be good for your health. If you want to take your to-do list transformation further, you can also use it as a guide without holding yourself accountable by crossing things off the list. Personally, this seems almost like blasphemy, but I understand the concept to keep someone from stressing about accomplishing everything on their list each week. That’s an extra layer of un-needed stress.
Finally, a retrospective review of your to-do list can come in handy when assessing “urgent” tasks. At the end of the week, looking back over the list might idenitify several items that were not nearly as urgent as they seemed. As Clark says, “you may find that what was driving the urgency around some tasks wasn’t their actual importance, but your workaholic reflex to treat any unfinished work as urgently needing to be completed!”
3. Don’t Be An Enabler
This is something that really hit home for me, and it is something I am constantly battling. Yes, I may be a bit of a workaholic. However, I do my very best not to make the people that report to me feel like they also have to be workaholics. The last thing anyone wants to be responsible for is causing more stress on other people, so I try to make sure I’m not giving what Clark calls “organizational signals.”
If I work on the weekends, I try my best not to talk about it because I don’t want my reports thinking I expect them to work weekends. If someone asks for time off work, I enthusiastically approve it and tell them we’ll get anything covered we need to. People shouldn’t be afraid to request time off. I use scheduled send on email and slack to make sure I’m not sending super early or late messages, even though it’s often easier to write the message down immediately while I’m thinking about it.
All of these examples above are very easy things to fall into. None of them scream “bad boss” or “workaholic,” but over time they can enable a culture of workaholism. If you feel like your organization enables workaholics, Clark gives us 4 easy ways to combat workaholism:
- Lower demands for work intensity
- Lower connectivity requirements
- Increase employee autonomy
- Increase support
If organizations work toward implementing those 4 combatants, we might have a lot less workaholics running around!