Don’t Confuse Frenzy with Efficiency
One morning, I arrived at my office at 3:45 am to continue working on a project that has been a thorn in my side for a long time. For 14 hours, I labored on the project. Several times during the day, I found myself struggling to stay awake.
It’s a bad habit I’ve had for a long time: going way too far above and beyond to “do my job.” The funny thing is, that project isn’t even my job. It belongs to someone else in the company but because it was ignored for so long, their lack of preparation became an emergency on my part. Nice guy. Hero complex.
Some days, my interrupted interruptions get interrupted. My professional life resembles whack-a-mole most days where I dart from one thing to the next, trying to put out as many “fires” as I can.
Many days, I go home after working for too many hours, wondering what it is that I’ve accomplished that day.
Maybe getting to the office at 3:45 am is somewhat unique to people with my kind of hero complex, but the story isn’t just mine. My story is just an example of a pervasive culture that rewards visible activity over meaningful outcomes. How many of us wear busyness like a badge of honor, even when it leads to burnout?
Gloria Mark from the University of California, Irvine, who specialized in digital distractions, claims it takes 23 minutes to…
