Monday, January 16, 2017

Manage Your Hours

One of the things that I try to do with this site is help people better market themselves for their next job or review. There are lots of ways to do this, but one way I wouldn’t suggest is to overwork yourself.

I note that it’s you doing this as you make the choice to work 60, 70, 80, or more hours a week. Very few jobs require this (there are exceptions), but many employers will gladly press you to work more if you allow this. I see far, far too many people that seem to be unable to push back when asked to work more and more.

There’s a BBC study that shows that working much more than others doesn’t pay off. I’d agree. Rather than work an extra 10 hours, what if you declined and spent that 10 hours learning, writing in a blog, practicing skills on a project? I think in a year you’d see a much greater return on your time.

You work for you. You should consider yourself a contract employee, even if you get a salary as a fulltime worker. Employers are not necessarily looking out for your best interest and can replace you easily. Many companies are loathe to replace workers, which is another reason you should not work an excess of hours as a general rule.

Always remember. Life is short and you work to live, not live to work.

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