Labor Day. Burgers and brats. Friends and family. One in three of us feeling chronically overworked. Huh?
The end-of-summer holiday now solicits images of fun, sun and outdoor grills, it's true. But, before you sit down with a cool one to enjoy much-deserved respite, visit the Families and Work Institute and print out a press release. The piece, New Study Reveals One in Three Americans Are Chronically Overworked, paints an interesting picture. (I'd send you off to their 13-page Executive Summary, but I know you don't have time to read it.)
Here are some interesting findings...
* 54 percent of American workers feel overwhelmed in the past month by how much work they are expected to complete.
* 29 percent spend a lot of time on work they consider a waste of time.
* More than a third of us are not planning to take our full vacation time earned.
* 37 percent of workers take short vacations--less than seven days--when most of us think it takes three whole days just to start relaxing.
* 21 percent of those highly worked experience symptoms of clinical depression, compared with eight percent who are not overworked.
Yeah, the findings are two years old but, with continued corporate downsizing without replacement by new workers, I'd be shocked if the findings aren't conservative for 2007.
So what's a person to do? Well, it would help if American culture would change to value employees' health and wellbeing (physical and emotional) as much as the bottom line. Short of a total social lobotomy, however, (America was founded by Puritans after all), it's left to each employee to reclaim his or her own life.
Start by disassociating yourself from the belief that more work is better and will get you ahead. More is not better if you're tired, frustrated and on the verge of tears. All you'll get from working at all hours of the night and checking your e-mail on vacation is more work thrown back at you--and possibly an ulcer.
Instead, savor your time off from work--both at the end of a fair workday and when you take your much-deserved vacation. Try to slow down your life to smell the proverbial roses each day. Read a good book once in a while. Look at your children when they're talking to you. Bake a cake. Work on a car. Take a walk. Visit with your neighbor. Call your mom.
The earth won't slow down for you. You have to slow down to enjoy it.
After all, do you really want to work at breakneck speed to finance a fancy vacation home 20 years from now when you know you'll never enjoy it anyway because you'll be tied to the phone on the drive there and working most of the weekend on your laptop and stressing over Monday's presentation and planning for the board's monthly meeting?
No.
Enjoy today. You work hard. Now commit yourself to living hard, too.
Happy Labor Day, America.