We’re all working too fast to try and get too much done.

A survey of more than sixty-five thousand American employees, primarily from knowledge-sector jobs, found a significant increase in feeling burnt out ‘often’ or ‘almost always’. More so with women than men.

A recent Gallup poll shows that American workers are now among the most stressed in the world. And the harder they work, the more stress they suffer.

Constant upgrades in technology have given us faster and faster processors. Essentially computers have doubled in speed every few years while costs have fallen. Workers everywhere have been expected to do the same.

But working faster and harder is not productive. It’s counter-productive. Trying to do more is a sure way to add more pressure. Adding more pressure increases tension, creates mistakes and lowers productivity. More time is spent achieving less.

The internet has accelerated our experience of time. Cutting back our working week will step us back to a slower experience of time. It can’t happen soon enough.

America’s Thirty-Two-Hour Workweek Act is endorsed by nearly a hundred members of Congress. Despite initial Republican pushback, it will become law.

But time spent at work is only one measure. The volume of work being assigned must also be reduced.

Attempting to fulfill the same number of work obligations in less time can become unbearably stressful. When there’s too much for us to imagine actually completing, we short-circuit our executive functioning mechanisms. Anxious unease soars, productivity plummets.

To mitigate the stress of overload, we must reduce the volume of work assigned to us in the first place. We must tackle the problem of too much work.

When work volume increases, so do the accompanying overhead and stress, reducing both the time remaining to actually execute the tasks and the quality of the results.

Enabling people to work more sequentially, focussing on a small number of things at a time, waiting until each is done before bringing on new obligations might actually increase completion rates.

This requires new ways of thinking and managing work. Slower, deeper and more productive ways of working.

More enjoyable and more sustainable ways of working.

More rewarding too.

References

“The case for slow work” Yes (2022)

“It’s time to embrace slow productivity” The New Yorker (2022)