A week ago I spent about 27 hours at the office, from Thursday 4:00PM to Friday 7:00PM. (I slept for only an hour during my break at 4:00AM) had about 8 cups of coffee, 3 chocolate bars for some sugar high and only one full meal. The last time I had to clock in these many hours was when Typhoon Ondoy hit Manila a few years back, and I had to be at the office a total of 48 hours and just went home to sleep for 3 hours.These are actually extreme cases and only happens if there is an urgent and critical need to be on site for those long hours.
Our jobs more often than not would require us to render overtime to meet certain deadlines or deliverables. Most employees get the benefit of being paid for those overtime hours, (In my case, I am no longer entitled to it.) so there is really nothing to complain about as long as you are properly compensated and that you still ensure that you maintain a healthy work-life balance. Some would even volunteer to do extra time because they need the additional income. But are we making sure that we do not stretch ourselves too much and avoid getting burned out?
There may be a lot of reasons for "Working Hard", (Some even have 2 full time jobs) but I believe its primarily to get additional compensation if you are entitled to it or to impress your bosses on your workload capacity. Otherwise, why would you kill yourself for it? (To the spin-off words of our National Hero - Ninoy Aquino, "Is your work worth dying for?")
I plead guilty on that.
During the start of my HR career (As an HR Coordinator) I would work long hours because I wanted to finish all my tasks for that day. An average of 10-12 hours was a typical work day for me. Of course you cannot also remove the fact that I wanted to prove that I was dependable and that I was eager to move up the ranks, thus the reason why I volunteered to take on so many task and had to accomplish so much.
One day, a very good mentor of mine drop by the HR office mid-afternoon and found me working at my desk. He asked me if I changed my schedule because he always knew that I worked during the graveyard shift. I tiredly answered that I was actually doing a double shift because I wanted to finish all my tasks for that day. His only response was; "Work will always be there, you empty your desk now it's guaranteed to be filled up again by tomorrow. Learn to prioritize and learn to say No. So your priority now is to go home to your family and rest, and I will see you tomorrow."
This gave me the enlightenment that it's not really the number of hours you put in to be able to be effective in your job, but how you actually manage your time and prioritize your responsibilities.
You often hear people say that
"I am hard-working, because I always go on overtime, I accept all challenges, etc." but you have to wonder, are you really effective if you keep doing extra hours on a job that by now should take you less to complete since you've pretty much
"mastered the art" already? Or by accepting all challenges, you might be setting yourself up for failure if you don't carefully analyze and review if the goals are realistic. You should know when to have that "Bring it On!" attitude and when to actually push back if you believe that the probability of success would be dependent on the resources you have and the time given to accomplish the task. Burning yourself out won't help much because this may lead to you getting sick and eventually not being able to go to work, which renders you unproductive.
Working Smart means effective time management and continuously improving on how you execute your action plans to achieve a certain goal. If you have at your disposal the power to delegate or the means to outsource, you may maximize those resources. You also have to maintain that mindset that it's not just a job, but a career that provides livelihood. (Thus the saying; you really have to love your job and enjoy what you are doing.)
"Even a boring occupation can be interesting when your goal is to do it better." - Robert Half
