This Is How Many Hours You Should Really Be Working

Have you ever wondered about the optimal number of hours to work per week?

Perhaps you are one of those people who brags about your 70-hour workweek, or maybe you are on the other end of the spectrum chasing the 4-hour workweek dream.

Who really has it right, anyway?

It turns out that the number of hours you work affects not only your productivity, but also your happiness and perception of how much time you have.

And we currently have some room for improvement.

A recent Gallup poll in the US revealed that one in five full-time employees work more than 60 hours a week and nearly half of US workers regularly clock at least 50 hours.

But those people are doing themselves (and their employers) a disservice.

Research shows that productivity falls sharply after 50 hours per week, and drops off a cliff after 55 hours. Additionally, not taking at least one full day off per week (e.g. Sunday) leads to lower hourly output overall.

From a productivity standpoint you shouldn’t go above 50 hours, but to cut down on stress you’d be wise to work even less.

It is no secret that we are busier and more connected than ever, often bouncing from one obligation to the next. This non-stop lifestyle has resulted in 48 percent of working adults feeling rushed for time, and 52 percent feeling significant stress as a result.

Time management expert Laura Vanderkam conducted a study to determine how the number of hours you work affects how much time you think you have.

Of the 900 people included in the study, the average person worked 8.3 hours per day. And the results showed that there was only a one hour difference between the people who felt like they had a lot of time and those who felt time-pressured. Those who felt like they had the least time overall worked 8.6 hours, whereas those who felt like they had the most time worked just one hour less (7.6 hours).

So to not feel starved for time, aim for a 7.6 hour work day. That would equate to a 38-hour workweek.

A 38-hour workweek is remarkably similar to the number of hours worked in Denmark, consistently one of the world’s happiest countries (Denmark has earned the top spot on the World Happiness Report in three of the past five years, and finished number two and three in the other years). People in Denmark work hard but rarely put in more than 37 hours a week, often leaving the office by 4 or 5pm. Other Scandinavian countries enjoy a similar work-life balance, and similar happiness rankings.

Happiness expert Dan Buettner takes it even a step further. Buettner has reviewed the research on more than 20 million people worldwide through the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index, and has conducted extensive on-the-ground research in the world’s happiest countries. “When it comes to your work, try to work part-time, 30–35 hours a week,” he concludes.

Buettner also recommends taking six weeks of vacation per year, which is the optimal amount for happiness. If that isn’t possible, he says at the very least you should use all of your allotted vacation time and keep negotiating for more until you’re getting 6 weeks.

Unfortunately Americans are not taking half of their vacation days, and two-thirds of Americans report working even when they are on vacation. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the US is down at #18 in the World Happiness Report.

Maybe 30 work hours per week and six weeks of vacation is not practical for you. But that’s okay.

If you want to achieve the perfect blend of productivity, happiness, and time affluence, a more realistic goal is to work slightly below 40 hours per week.

The research shows that even shaving an hour or two off of the standard 40-hour workweek can have huge benefits, both at work and at home.

Less than 10% of workers are able to achieve that schedule. A good goal is to be one of those people.

Here’s to the 38-hour workweek!

Andrew Merle writes about living well, including good habits for happiness, health, productivity, and success. Subscribe to his email list at andrewmerle.com.

Wake Up With This 9-Minute "Snooze" Ritual

I pride myself on being a morning person and having a highly-productive morning routine. 

I consistently get 7-8 hours of sleep, religiously go for a 30-minute run in the morning, always make my bed, and even block out the first hour of my work day to tackle my single most important task.  

But I’ll admit that it has always been hard for me to get out of bed.  I have struggled with this for as long as I can remember. 

It has been common for me to set my alarm for 6am, only to snooze several times and not get out of bed until 6:30 or later.  Somehow the warmth of my bed just seems impossible to leave, even if I know that those 30 minutes of snoozing are not actually restful or restorative. 

To make matters worse, I also pride myself on time management, and yet I know that those 30 minutes of snoozing are a total waste of time. 

So I have been in search of an effective way to actually wake up when the alarm goes off.  And I think I have finally found the answer. 

I have learned that I need to ease into the day.  It is essential for me to have a bridge between the peaceful night’s rest and the commotion of the day.  I have found that there just isn’t anything that reliably causes me jump up and excitedly rush out of bed (other than realizing I’m late for a meeting!). 

Understanding this about myself, I started thinking about meditation as an ideal start to the day.  I know all about the benefits of meditation, and have tried to work it into my routine in the past, but have not consistently made time for this practice in my schedule.  There just has never seemed to be enough time in the morning to meditate, along with everything else I try to fit in before heading off to work. 

So that got me thinking about using my “snooze” period more productively.  It occurred to me that I could swap my snooze time for meditation time - if only I could get out of bed.  And then I thought to myself, “Why even get out bed?”  Maybe I’d be more successful waking up and sticking to a meditation practice if I removed the barrier of actually leaving my bed.  And that’s exactly what has happened. 

It turns out that my need for slowly easing into the day, interest in meditation, and love of maximizing time have all combined for the perfect wake-up solution. 

I still set my alarm for 6am.  And I still hit the snooze button.  But now that snooze button starts the timer for my meditation session.  I simply sit up in bed – a much lower threshold than actually getting out – and spend the snooze period meditating. 

My meditation is nothing fancy.  I sit up in a comfortable position with my back against the wall, supported by two pillows.  And then I just close my eyes and focus on my breathing.  Whenever I notice my attention wandering, I just bring my focus back to my breath. I do this repeatedly for nine minutes (the duration of one “snooze” on my settings) until the alarm goes off again.  And remarkably I have not once fallen back asleep. 

I’m sure this isn’t the textbook meditation technique, but I do know that I feel calm, centered, and ready to start the day after my 9-minute snooze meditation.  I then drink a glass of water (that I keep next to my bed), slowly get out of bed, and continue on with my morning routine. 

This simple process means that I am getting out of bed 20 minutes earlier than I previously was, all while fitting in a morning meditation, and getting into the right frame of mind to take on the day.  And I’m not sacrificing any quality sleep. 

This wake-up ritual is working wonders for me, and I thought it could be helpful for other habitual “snoozers” as well.  I hope it works for you.         

Here’s to a great morning!

Make Mine O'Clock Part of Your Morning Routine

In order to be successful, it is essential to make progress against your top priorities before responding to other people’s requests.

This means starting each day in proactive mode — doing the work that is most important to you before turning your attention to the ‘urgent’ needs of others.

I recommend protecting the first hour of each work day — what I refer to as ‘Mine O’Clock’ — and attack it on your own terms.

Taking this hour, every morning, to make progress against your short- and long-term goals will add up to big wins over time.

On the flip side, if you don’t guard the first hour of your day — and instead spend it responding to email or rushing off to meetings — your most meaningful work will get crowded out. The day will quickly be eaten up, and your energy drained, before you even get started on our own projects.

Take the following steps to make Mine O’Clock part of your morning routine:

1. Block off the first hour of every work day

• Set a daily recurring appointment in Outlook (or other calendar you use) so this time is preserved and shows others you are booked
• Do not schedule meetings or calls during this hour
• Respectfully decline or ask to reschedule all meeting/call invites during this hour, unless mandatory. If there are meetings scheduled during this time that are required, consider starting your day an hour earlier in those instances

2. Establish your daily to-do list in advance

• Limit it to 3 (or fewer) critical items
• I recommend writing out your to-do list the night before

3. Begin the day with your single most important task

• Find a quiet place to work where you will not be interrupted
• Start your day working on your single most important item. Once complete, move on to other critical to-dos from there
• Avoid email and social media during this hour

It might seem selfish to devote the first hour of every day to your own priorities, but this routine will actually increase your productivity and impact for your company.

And it is highly likely that your boss and co-workers will respect (and perhaps follow) your routine, especially when they see your increased performance.

Oftentimes you’ll accomplish more in the first hour taking this approach than you otherwise would all day. Completing something significant first-thing gives you momentum and can set off a chain reaction of high output throughout the day.

Just imagine how much more effective we would all be if we completed our most important task of the day first thing in the morning.

There are 8+ hours in a typical workday. Protect the first one for your most meaningful work.

Are you ready to make Mine O’Clock part of your morning routine?

Why You Should Be On Time

Being on time is one habit that accomplishes two very important things — it melts away stress and improves relationships at the same time.

So why, then, do so many of us constantly run late, keep others waiting, and in general cut it far too close?

It certainly has something to do with the fact that we’re overcommitted and busier than ever.

But another reason for our tardiness is that we simply don’t leave ourselves enough time.

When planning our commute or how long an activity will take, we tend to think in best-case-scenario terms. Since we have gotten up and out the door in 20 minutes before, that’s the math we use when deciding the time for our alarm wake-up call. Because we have made it to the restaurant in 10 minutes in the past, that’s how long we expect it to take again. We want something to take a certain length of time, so therefore that’s the amount of time we allocate.

Sometimes it does go perfectly, and how nice is that? Everything goes smoothly and our day comes together like a well-orchestrated puzzle.

But oftentimes it doesn’t.

There is unexpected traffic, or we just can’t find the right outfit to wear. Our toddler needs to make a last-minute bathroom stop before we can head out. We can’t find a parking spot, or didn’t realize how much time one wrong turn could set us back. We didn’t think about how long the walk from the parking garage into the restaurant would take. Or any number of other unexpected events.

That is why Greg McKeown, New York Times best-selling author of Essentialism, recommends adding a 50 percent buffer to the amount of time we estimate something will take. That might seem overly cautious, but McKeown reminds us to think about how often things actually do take 50% longer than anticipated. So if you estimate it will take 20 minutes to get to your business meeting or daughter’s piano lesson, leave the house 30 minutes ahead of time instead.

As McKeown says, “Not only does this relieve the stress we feel about being late (imagine how much less stressful sitting in traffic would feel if we weren’t running late), but if we do find that the task was faster and easier to execute than we expected (though this is a rare experience for most of us), the extra found time feels like a bonus.” Better yet, these days our mobile devices actually enable us to pass time in a productive way — check emails with the extra time, make a quick phone call, or read that article you’ve been meaning to finish. Being early doesn’t have to feel like wasted time.

Reducing stress has been shown to lead to a strengthened immune system, better cardiovascular health, less depression, and an overall more enjoyable life. So remove one unnecessary source of stress in your life by committing to being on time.

Another reason we are often late is that we simply haven’t prioritized punctuality. We haven’t deemed it important enough to show up at the time we were supposed to be there. Sometimes we think it just isn’t that big of a deal.

But thinking this way is a mistake.

If we made a commitment to an activity, we should show respect by being there when we said we would (otherwise we shouldn’t make the commitment at all). Even when we’re going to activities that we don’t consider “high priority”, showing up late still makes us feel guilty and stressed, not to mention being disrespectful to the people we are meeting. It implies that our time is more important than theirs, which hurts both our reputation and our relationships.

So stop trying to fit in those last-minute emails before heading out the door. Get in the car earlier than you have to. Don’t put yourself in the situation of having to come up with excuses for being late.

Instead, be known as someone who is always on time. And watch your life change as a result.

Why Single-Tasking is the New Multi-Tasking

In our busy and hectic lives, the ability to focus has become more important than ever.

Harnessing our attention requires minimizing distraction. And for all of the benefits and efficiencies modern technology brings, digital tools have also become some of our biggest distractions. These distractions fill our days and make us feel busy, but busyness and productivity are two different things.

As #1 New York Times best-selling author Tom Rath says, “Staying connected is now remarkably easy. As a result, getting anything of substance done is not.”

In Rath’s book, Are You Fully Charged?, he notes that people unlock their cell phones an average of 110 times per day, including 9 times per hour during peak evening hours. He reports that workers sitting in front of a computer screen are interrupted at least every 3 minutes, and forfeit 28% of each day to distraction. In fact, only 1 in 5 people say they have the ability to focus on one thing at a time at work.

So how can we take control over our devices and tune in to our own minds? Here are some recommended strategies:

• Do not check email first thing in the morning or last thing at night. This approach is championed by Tim Ferriss, who says that email first thing derails your priorities for the day and email right before sleeping gives you insomnia. Putting this into practice has been a life-changer for me.
• Finish the most important item on your to-do list in the morning before checking email, social media, or responding to phone calls.
• Shut off instant alerts and notifications when you are trying to focus (phone ringer, email notifications, social media alerts, push notifications, etc.). Consider an internet blocker if you are really struggling with procrastination.
• Set specific times to check social media, email, and phone calls.
• Shut off all electronic devices (TV, Phone, Computer, Tablet, etc.) 1 hour before bedtime for a better night sleep and to be more productive the next day. A great use of this time before bed is to read a real book.
• Only use your phone when you’re alone. Put your phone away when you are spending time with another person. You made a choice to be with that person, so give him or her your full attention and watch your relationship improve. Phone time and meal time definitely do not go together.
• Consider going completely phone-free for one full day each weekend.

What all of these tactics really do is help us to focus on one thing at a time. It turns out that “single-tasking” is actually the best way to get important things done. As Dr. Mike Dow, psychotherapist and best-selling author of The Brain-Fog Fix, says, “Mindfulness — doing one thing at a time and paying attention while doing it — is a powerful antidote to the barrage of distractions that come at us day and night.” Giving our attention only to the task at hand enables us to accomplish more while feeling less anxious and less scatterbrained.

Digital interruptions are more prevalent and persistent than ever before.

Those who have the ability to tune out the distractions and tune into themselves will truly be set apart from the rest.

Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset (And How To Get More Of It)

Research suggests that once people earn $75,000 per year, making additional money has no positive effect on emotional well-being and happiness. It seems that money is important to ensure our basic needs are met and a decent standard of living, but beyond that point there is little evidence that material purchases (including fancy homes and expensive cars) produce lasting happiness.

While much attention is given to monetary and material affluence, it appears as though time affluence is a better predictor of personal happiness. And, it makes sense — We are busier than ever, more technologically connected than ever, and often our days are spent rushing from one activity or obligation to the next. So the ability to gain control over our time, and direct it in the most meaningful ways, has become increasingly important.

Wall Street Journal best-selling author Jon Acuff believes that time is our most valuable currency, and I agree with him. In fact, Acuff asserts (in his inspirational book Start) that “time is the only honest indication of what matters to us.”

So, when you look at your calendar over the last day, week, month, or year, is your time spent consistent with what is important to you and the person you want to be — whether that’s experiences with family and close friends, making a difference in other people’s lives, pursuing a new business idea, learning a new skill or sport, working, exercising, or something else of significance? If not, the first step to spending your time more thoughtfully is to take control of your calendar.

But how can you rescue some time back in order to focus it in the most meaningful areas?

A good place to start is by saying “no” more often. As #1 New York Times best-selling author Tom Rath says, “The next time a new opportunity presents itself, think carefully before making an ongoing commitment. If it is something you feel you should take on, determine what other activity you might need to let go of. When you are struggling between two choices,remember there is always a third option: doing nothing. In many cases, declining both options is the best route.”

Trying to do everything usually means not doing anything very well. Perhaps that’s why journalist and success researcher Shane Snow says that often “the thing holding us back from success is our inability to say no.”

Snow notes in his book, Smartcuts, that some of the most successful people also save time by sticking to rigid routines and simplifying decision-making.This is why Steve Jobs often wore the same thing every day (black turtlenecks and Levi’s 501 jeans) and why President Barack Obama stocks his closet with only gray or blue suits. President Obama has said, “I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”

And then of course we can actually buy time, a notion that is endorsed in the eye-opening book, Happy Money, about the best ways to spend our money. The authors, Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, say that “by permitting ourselves to outsource our most dreaded tasks, from scrubbing toilets to cleaning gutters, money can transform the way we spend our time, freeing us to pursue our passions.” Yes, outsourcing costs money, but it’s a great use of it.

Dunn and Norton also talk about taking back time by reducing the hours we spend on two key activities — commuting and watching TV. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Americans spend more than 100 hours per yearcommuting to work, which is more than the two weeks of vacation that most workers take annually! Additionally, an American spends on average abouttwo months per year watching television! Of course television can produce a lot of pleasure, but we probably don’t need 4 hours of it per day.

There is no doubt that we live busy lives with many things competing for our attention. But we can take control of our calendar by implementing just some of the ideas in this article.

Say “no” more frequently. Establish routines to automate decision-making. Outsource unpleasant tasks. Live closer to work. Cut down on TV watching.

And, finally, unplug. Minimize interruption and distraction by checking email fewer times per day and disconnecting for a little while.

After a certain point, money and possessions don’t matter much. Time is more precious. So maximize your time and prioritize the things that are most important to you.

It’s actually pretty simple.

How will you spend your time?

The Beauty of Blank Space on Your Calendar

It is very easy these days to find ourselves overcommitted and overwhelmed as we try to “fit it all in.” There are many demands for our time and attention, pulling us in a thousand different directions, and countless distractions to derail us from what really matters.

It is all too common to find ourselves busy nonstop throughout the day without any space for real thinking. After all, when our lives are so hectic, isn’t it an unrealistic luxury to set dedicated time aside for thinking and reflecting?

That is the default mindset for many, but author Greg McKeown provides an alternative viewpoint in his New York Times best-selling book, Essentialism (a fantastic book about doing less, but better, in all areas of our lives). He says,“The faster and busier things get, the more we need to build thinking time into our schedule. And the noisier things get, the more we need to build quiet reflection spaces in which we can truly focus.”

McKeown cites Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, who schedules up to two hours of uninterrupted time on his calendar every day. Weiner started this practice when back-to-back meetings began consuming his schedule. Initially, blocking out blank space felt like an indulgence, but now he credits it with being his single-most important productivity tool.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos follows a similar model. He has been known to keep two days per week unstructured in order to think, generate new ideas, and take a long-term perspective instead of getting buried in the day-to-day.

Another example is Bill Gates who has habitually taken a week off (twice a year) simply to read and to think. Just in case this only seems possible for Gates at this stage in his career, it turns out that his “Think Week” ritual dates back to the early 1980s and has been maintained during even the most stressful business times at Microsoft and his foundation.

As McKeown says, “No matter how busy you think you are, you can carve time and space to think out of your workday.” Maybe it could be first thing in the morning instead of checking email, or in the afternoon as an alternative to social media.

Whether it is two hours per day, two days per week, or two weeks per year, we need to make it a point to block out time specifically to think.

This space is vital in order to prioritize our life and work, and to focus our energy in the most meaningful areas.

But it will only happen if we deliberately design it into our calendar.

Why You Should Do Your Work First, Others’ Work Second

I stopped checking my email first thing in the morning several years ago after reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek. He said that one simple change would be a life-changer, and it has been for me.

The reason why it works is because it enables proactive work first, reactivework second.

Even when we have clear top priorities for the day, checking email first thing can easily derail those plans by compelling us to react and respond to other people’s “urgent” needs. And before you know it, the day has been totally eaten up, and our energy drained, before we can get started on our own projects.

This is why Dan Ariely, James B. Duke Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University, says “It would probably be best if managers went to the IT department and asked that email not be distributed between 8 and 11 every morning.”

The experts say that it is key to block off time in the morning whenever possible to do the work that is most important to you, including focusing on long-term projects without an immediate payoff. If you don’t build big-picture meaningful work right into your daily calendar, it will always get crowded out by the small stuff.

Best-selling author and researcher Tom Rath reinforces this point by saying,“What you will be most proud of a decade from now will not be anything that was a result of you simply responding.” He recommends to, “Manage your communications, online and offline, instead of letting them run your life. If you don’t, you will inadvertently spend a majority of your time responding to other people’s needs instead of creating anything that lasts.”

We are busier than ever and there are dozens of things every day to divert our attention, so it now seems that that maintaining our focus is actually our biggest competitive advantage. Entrepreneur Scott Belsky, named to Fast Company’s “100 Most Creative People in Business List”, says that “Whatever the future of technology may hold, the greatest leaders will be those most capable of tuning into themselves and harnessing the full power of their own minds.”

It is actually easiest to get sucked into a day of busyness and bouncing from one urgent thing to the next. Perhaps that’s why the best leaders and creative minds seem to agree that giving ourselves time to think, and focusing on our top priorities before others’ needs, is a key to long-term productivity and success.

In a world filled with distraction, I know that I’ll keep looking for ways to harness my attention and preserve more space to focus on the big picture. AsHenry David Thoreau said, “It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”

Now just imagine if there were no meetings and no email before 11am — perhaps that is the way of the future!