Jason Fried is the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp and best-selling author of Rework and It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work. As boundaries between work and life blur, it can be challenging to ensure that work doesn’t take over everything. Jason is a big believer in capping a workweek at 40 hours.
He says, “We don’t want people working more than 40 hours. You don’t need to. If we’re doing that, then we’re doing something wrong. I know at a lot of companies, long hours are seen as doing something right, and staying late and working on the weekends is encouraged. I think that’s completely wrong. We’re very careful about not encouraging our employees to work that way.”
Anything that can’t get done in 40 hours can wait until the next day or the next week. That’s because 50, 60, or 80 hour weeks aren’t sustainable. In an emergency, they can be done once in a while, but keeping it up consistently doesn’t produce the best results.
Jason says, “Sometimes you’re going to burn out or you’re going to burn people out. Maybe you can do 80-hour weeks, but it won’t be enjoyable. You’re not going to keep a good team together with you for a long period of time, and you’re going to lose a lot of great people along the way. It’s hard enough to find great people, so I want to keep them happy with reasonable work hours, challenging work, great people, and a great environment.”
Just because you put in a lot of hours doesn’t mean you’re producing good work; you can spend extra hours on bad work. Most of the time the best ideas and new innovations come after people come back to a problem refreshed. Working until you are beyond exhausted and stressed doesn’t usually lead to breakthroughs.
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Over the last 15 years, I’ve had the privilege of speaking and working with some of the world’s top leaders. Here are 15 of the best leadership lessons that I learned from the CEOs of organizations like Netflix, Honeywell, Volvo, Best Buy, The Home Depot, and others. I hope they inspire you and give you things you can try in your work and life. Get the PDF here.
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