Three reasons why working less is the real secret to earning more!

Image credit: Steven Houston from Unsplash

We all want to work less and earn more, don’t we? It’s the dream, the final step towards that ever-elusive ‘work/life balance.’ And yet, until now, most of us have assumed that it’s a myth. After all, you get out what you put in – everyone knows that!

Unless maybe you don’t. According to recent reports, US workers who put in as many as 60 hours each week were less likely than their peers to have received a bonus in the last three years.

Far from being an injustice, this is clear evidence that you don’t have to work yourself into the ground to get ahead. In fact, doing so could be hindering your earnings, and here’s why.

A focus on quantity not quality
When we push ourselves too far to be productive, we fall into a focus on quantity rather than quality. After all, a sixty-hour workweek might sound impressive, but there’s no way you can produce good work for that length of time. Rather, you’re liable to work like a sleep-deprived zombie trudging towards a deadline. And, your efforts will be as flat as your pulse!

By comparison, employees who stick to the forty-hour standard may well come in and boss it on the quality front, meaning that their shorter timeframe is worth more than your long one. Which begs the question, why would you bother to work more in the first place?

An inability to hand over responsibility
If you’re too focused on being the hardest working, then you’re more likely to take everything on your shoulders. This may seem like a valiant effort, but martyrdom is never good. If you’re juggling product development on top of lead generation, you’re more liable to wear yourself down and drop both balls.

By comparison, outsourcing allows you to hone your time, and clock off at a decent hour. All with the promise of better results. After all, outsourcing managed IT means that you can get cybersecurity right at last while turning to a lead generation company ensures that time you spend converting is time well spent. Far from a failure, accepting that you can’t do it all is fundamental to making the most possible money from your time. 

Sleepy Friends GIF from Sleepy GIFs

Failure to see straight
It’s also worth noting that, the more you work, the less you can see simple solutions to challenges. And, when this happens, you spend more time developing less satisfactory responses.

Switching your brain off sometimes is the ideal way to solve production dilemmas or close leads at last. Much like when we’re falling asleep, our brains often find answers to these things themselves when left to their devices. By comparison, hunching over a desk and considering things for too long will make it trickier for you to reach satisfactory conclusions, as well as taking ever more of that precious time. 

So, you see, it may sound impressive when you state you’ve worked a sixty-hour week, but is it really the right way to earn more? Probably not.