Is their only evidence one line about how people who make more also take more vacation? Correlation != Causation
If you want to earn more, work less
11–18 of 18 posts
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#12Ever since graduating from college, I've adhered to one principle: I only work for employers who either 1) value output, not seat time, or 2) who explicitly require 40 hours a week (no more, no less; this can be an average over the previous year). It's not because I'm not dedicated, or a high performer--in fact, I'd argue my preferences are rooted in actually being a high performer. I know that not much of additional…
Interesting perspective. I completely agree with most of your sentiments but I just can't shake the feeling that this kind of attitude is much more difficult for people who are non-knowledge workers with more labor intensive work (i.e. cleaning etc).
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#13Ever since graduating from college, I've adhered to one principle: I only work for employers who either 1) value output, not seat time, or 2) who explicitly require 40 hours a week (no more, no less; this can be an average over the previous year). It's not because I'm not dedicated, or a high performer--in fact, I'd argue my preferences are rooted in actually being a high performer. I know that not much of additional…
I totally agree. For about 30 years I usually set my cap at 32 hours/week, which worked well for me. Now that I am in my 60s, I set the cap at about 20 hours a week, and actually prefer 15 hours a week.
The 'extra' time allowed me to write a lot of books (a fun activity) and spend more time with friends and family.
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#14Is their only evidence one line about how people who make more also take more vacation? Correlation != Causation
No, but lack of correlation does prove no causation.
So if "more vacation" is not correlated with earning less, one might as well take it.
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#15The article says Japanese salarymen work themselves to death. Then it says their culture looks down upon people who leave early. Then it goes on to quote an American study that working less hours pays more. Am I the only one seeing the problem here?
No, but there's a bigger problem than the mismatched cultural observations made in support of the article's claim that people also miss.
Regardless whether the American experience in the US study applies to the Japanese office, there's a point that remains: while those Japanese might not get promoted or get fired for working less, it would still be better for them to quit their career than work themselves to death.
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#16From the article -- "someone who puts in 70 hours doesn’t produce anything more with those additional 14 hours" This was something I always wondered about at Google. Because you could eat three meals a day there, shower, do your laundry, and nominally sleep[1] does that make their employees that much more expensive than people with out the extra perks? [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truc.…
Those extra percs are insignificant in cost compared to their salaries, that they'd get anyway.
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#17Ever since graduating from college, I've adhered to one principle: I only work for employers who either 1) value output, not seat time, or 2) who explicitly require 40 hours a week (no more, no less; this can be an average over the previous year). It's not because I'm not dedicated, or a high performer--in fact, I'd argue my preferences are rooted in actually being a high performer. I know that not much of additional…
Interesting perspective. I completely agree with most of your sentiments but I just can't shake the feeling that this kind of attitude is much more difficult for people who are non-knowledge workers with more labor intensive work (i.e. cleaning etc).
It is absolutely more difficult. It is very easy to wax poetic about the types of jobs one will and will not do when one has job security in the form of many readily available, high-paying jobs. Most are not that lucky and in fact would be grateful to work more hours because it might put them over the threshold to full time and benefits for example.
Others like lawyers, are on a similar situation treadmill tied to hours worked. It is often up or out at big firms, and going up always entails working lots of billable hours. Work fewer hours, make less money and no great future.
Ultimately, the path to success increasingly seems to be freeing yourself from a single entity that controls your pay (i.e. Employer, single client or customer, etc.). From there it is down to finding ways to scale your output beyond your hourly constraint (you only have so many hours in a day you can work, even for high pay) and ways to diversify income to reduce risk.
Re: If you want to earn more, work less
#18Work smart not hard. Automate everything you can automate. I do this and I routinely finish projects 30% faster than my peers. Another plus is that automation results in less human error.