A new study by Italian researchers has found that Americans are less
happy than they were 30 years ago, because they work longer hours and
enjoy fewer relationships.
Stefano Bartolini of Siena University in Italy
and two other researchers tapped three decades of data from the General
Social Survey, an interview series from the University of Chicago that
monitors social change.They found that while the average
American paycheck had risen in the period studied, the well-being
caused by higher pay was offset by a decline in the quality of
relationships.
What 40-Hour Workweek?
Bartolini,
who presented the findings at a June conference on "policies for
happiness," told Reuters that a drop in "social capital" was behind the
rise in unhappiness. "The increase in hours worked by Americans over
the last 30 years has heavily affected their happiness because people
who are more absorbed by work have less time and energy for
relationships," Bartolini said.
Yet this isn't strictly an
American phenomenon. More than 600 million people worldwide work more
than 48 hours a week, according to a new report by the International Labour Organization. Workers in Peru and South Korea
racked up the most overtime, with roughly half the workforce of those
nations on the job more than 48 hours weekly. Some 18 percent of
Americans fell into that category. The report suggests that
people aren't working harder to buy McMansions and flat-screen TVs.
"Attempts to reduce hours in these countries have been unsuccessful for
various reasons, including the need of workers to work long hours
simply to make ends meet," the report stated.
Unfocused Priorities
Long hours on the job can become a vicious cycle, says Peter Turla, a corporate consultant in Dallas and author of "Time Management Made Easy."
"We
tend to work long hours because we feel overwhelmed and are trying to
get caught up," he says. "By the end of the day we're really tired; it
takes more time to get things done because we're tired; we go home and
don't have time for personal life, so there's no time to refresh. And
then we don't sleep enough. We go to work the next day tired, we're not
efficient and effective, and by the end of the week we're close to
burnout." One solution is to be mindful of "Parkinson's Law":
Work expands to fill the time allotted to its completion, says Turla.
He tells clients to imagine they're in a carpool that leaves at a
particular time each day, and they have to get their act together to
get a ride home. "The idea is to have a specific goal for when
you're going to quit for the day," says Turla. "Otherwise, you get into
a 'I can always stay late and get it done' mode of working. After a
while you have to stay late to get things done because you tend to let
things drag on too long, get carried away with trivia, or spend too
much time with unjustified perfectionism. You get unfocused with your
priority setting."
Hard Work, Small Payoff
Doug Sundheim of Clarity Consulting in New York, and co-author of "The 25 Best Time Management Tools and Techniques,"
agrees. "I think the biggest mistake people make is spending too much
time on the wrong things," he says. "You've got someone doing a bang-up
job on part of their work process, but it's not delivering on their
core goals.
"For example," Sundheim continues, "I had a
client who was fanatical about notating every part of the conversation
in a meeting; he would stay after work to do it. But there was a lot of
detail he never used."
Another time-consuming behavior among
leaders, he adds, is the inability to say no. "The classic example is a
client who had multiple people he was delivering work to in the
organization, and no one knew how much the other people were giving
him. He never said no to anyone."
Negotiation Is Key
Sundheim
helped his client learn to negotiate with higher-ups on delivery dates.
"A lot of people don't realize there's flexibility," he says. "You say,
'I really want to do this, but I've got a lot on my plate. Can I get it
to you by Friday instead of Tuesday? If not, how about half of it by
Tuesday and the rest Friday?'" Sundheim says the same goes for
family commitments: Be proactive about your desires. He recalled one
client who emailed a group a week before their usual off-site meeting
to ask if it could begin and end an hour early so he could attend his
son's championship basketball game.
"People assume they can't
make requests of bosses and colleagues to fit life needs," he says.
"Clients we've worked with, almost to a person, come back and say, 'I
was amazed at how open my boss was to negotiating and finding a way to
help make this work.'" Goals in Sight
The best time-management technique, experts say, is to start with crystal-clear goals.
Sundheim
has clients brainstorm a long list of everything they're interested in
having; put them into categories such as health, work, family, and
financial; then circle the ones that seem most exciting. Asking why
those goals are exciting can help people identify their deeper values,
he says.
The next step is to look at creative ways to achieve
the list. "I have clients write 'I could...' in response to that goal
until they've got ten to twenty ideas down on a page," says Sundheim. "From
there, it becomes a process of experimentation," he continues. "One of
the biggest reasons people never get out of the starting block is
they're afraid to experiment with ways to pursue their goals."
Make a List (or Two)
Once
you clarify what you want, keep a written list in front of you, says
Turla. "Thirty percent of people in my seminars make their to-do list
in their heads," he says. "Then they tend to leave things out on their
desks as a reminder to work on them. But visual clutter is clutter in
mind -- there's no focus. People end up jumping from one thing to
another."
Turla recommends that clients keep a list of daily
tasks and a "parking lot" list, with items that have no specific
deadline. "Every day, check your calendar, check your parking lot list,
and build your daily action list. It's best to do at the end of the day
so you have a plan for the next day," he advises.
The upside
of all this effort for time-strapped workers? "Most people are actually
pretty good at managing their time once they figure out what's
important," says Sundheim. |
