leave

I am writing this whilst sitting on a plane going around New Zealand. A realisation that it doesn’t matter whether it is Sydney, Brisbane, Coffs Harbour, Perth, London or any other part of the world, there is a group of high achievers who just refuse to leave. They don’t take holidays, they are the first to get to work and last to leave and they take on the responsibility of the whole business. These guys are regularly working in senior management positions or business owners.

So learn to leave.

See at the end of your innings how do you want the obituary to read? “We never really knew him because he worked all the time”. This would be a concern.

Learn to do what has to be done and leave. In life it is not how many hours you do at the office however it is way more effective to get things done. Get done what has to be done today and get out of there.

So on any given week you are working 40-60 hours. Occasionally you may do more and rarely less. However why is it that we flog ourselves continuously night after night at the risk of things we enjoy and people we married or once loved.

So learn to leave.

New York changed it’s reputation from the crime capital of the world to have one of the lowest rates of crime following a zero tolerance of any misdemeanor. Anyone that looked suspicious was locked up. Have a zero tolerance on your available work hours and educate yourself and others about your availability.

Why you won’t leave?
1. You’re a high achiever who has hung around other high achievers and have been led to believe more is better. You have seen your mentors and idols work ridiculous hours, so you do the same thing.
2. You’re incompetent and are inefficient at your job. If you are continuously doing more than 60 hours per week then consider how well you are delegating, communicating, prioritising and the skill of your staff.
3. You don’t know what to do with yourself when you are alone or finished early.
4. Work has become your obsession and you have put aside hobbies, your health and chill out time therefore moving you to become out of balance.
5. You feel guilty when you are not at work.
6. Your energy levels are low from being overworked and therefore your promotion of negative thoughts is high. Anything other than work is an effort.

So consider the 5-7 things that are most important to you. Review your diary over the last few days, weeks and months and consider how much time you have put into these areas. We all have 168 hours in a week and and average 4000 weeks in our lives. How will you be remembered?