Research shows that extremely long work weeks backfire. If you work more than 55 hours per week, you actually perform worse than colleagues with shorter work weeks. This effect is not only temporary: studies show that long working hours can lead to a decline in important cognitive skills such as reasoning, vocabulary, and memory in the long run. The problem manifests itself as early as middle age, suggesting that the effects of overwork accumulate throughout one’s career.
The negative effects of long workdays go beyond just reduced mental sharpness. Employees who consistently work overtime make more mistakes, creating extra work. This leads to a vicious cycle: despite working more hours, productivity actually drops. The result is that less work is ultimately completed, despite all the extra hours put in. These findings hold true even when researchers account for other factors such as age, education, income, health problems, and sleep disorders.
The message is clear: working more does not automatically mean achieving more. On the contrary, those who consistently work more than 55 hours a week risk not only lower productivity in the short term but also lasting damage to cognitive functions. For both employers and employees, it is therefore wise to keep work weeks within reasonable limits, where quality takes precedence over quantity.
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- The optimal amount of free time seems to be between 2 and 4 hours per day
- Modern work is unconfined work
- Large organizations extinguish employees' passion
- A four-day workweek improves employee well-being without reducing productivity
- Explore a map for each month’s cycle that not only includes things to do, but also things to avoid
- Try to get four hours of concentrated work into a workday, and never more than six
- “Revenge bedtime procrastination” is the deliberate delay of bedtime to regain control
