Overworking can harm your start up
If you are a year into your start-up and still clocking 14 hours at work week after week, I bet you are harming your business. Probably it is time for a break. I say one year because the initial excitement of starting-up definitely takes us all very far. We’ll never feel the fatigue. But if you persist on pushing yourself that hard even after the first year, in-spite of the fatigue, it can be hazardous – both for the start-up and your health.
A simple example. I have the habit of playing the Blocks game in my iphone when I wait for buses. The game is pretty easy – few seconds, few moves and you have cracked it. I almost do it instinctively and it is fun because it is easy. I generally don’t solve more than a few in a row. On one occasion I kept at it for more than half an hour. By the 45th minute, I was taking much longer than what I usually need to solve those easy puzzles. By the end of the hour I was convinced that the level was getting harder with every puzzle I solved, so I started working harder at them. Soon, I gave up because it ceased being fun.
When I reopened the same puzzle the next day, I was done in a few seconds. I realised, it wasn’t the puzzle that was getting harder the previous day; it was my head that was getting more tired. But, my fatigued head made me believe the puzzle was a lot harder than what it actually was because of which I worked harder at it, fatiguing my mind even more – a vicious cycle that perpetuated and intensified itself over time.
That is exactly what happens in a start-up too. Probably your threshold is high. But you have to acknowledge that there is a threshold beyond which your time at the same thing is useless. It is easy to over-work yourself to a point where you think the problem at hand is harder than what it actually is.
I generally get snarled at by the devs when I broach the subject of balance in life. The usual argument is that development is not easy, and with technology fast changing nothing gets accomplished without the long hours. I understand tech is hard. But, if you aren’t resting enough, neither are those long hours going to be productive. One simple way to test is to consciously use Pivotal tracker to see how you perform in terms of velocity when you work 8 hours 5 days a week and the weeks that you work 12 – 14 hours ( I am already smiling at the surprise that awaits you!).
Workaholism is an addiction like any other – you need a lot of discipline to break away from it. If you are a workaholic, you will always have smart excuses to justify your addiction – we can’t afford regular lives right now, we love what we do, we are at a point where only speed matters and so on. Well, by doing so not only are you harming yourself but your start-up and its culture too. Can you envision having creative discussions among your team members when everbody is edgy, negative and contentious because of continuous over-work? Isn’t start-ups to a large extent about using your creativity to come up with smarter solutions?
Everytime you over work yourself to clear your inbox, tell yourself that what matters is not zeroing the inbox but how effectivley you communicate; what matters is not writing more code for a complicated solution but giving yourself the rest to come up with a smarter, simpler solution; what matters is not throwing more hours at wrong problems but having the energy to identify the right problems.
Some book recommendations below from me on this subject:
The Power of Full Engagement
