Malissa Clark. Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture Is Bad for Buisness – and How to Fix It.Harvard Business Review Press. Boston, Massachusetts. 2024.
Reading this book gives you time to think hard about your values and your workloads -- beyond what you get paid to do. Table of contents, interviews, and article only scratch the surface.
Each chapter has a detailed list of key takeaways.
Contents
Introduction: The Age of Overwork
- Why Now?
- A Broader Approach
- How This Book Works
Chapter 1: Workaholism Myths and Realities
- Myth: Workaholics are the ideal workers
- Workaholism Is Not…
- It’s Not a Clinical Condition
- It’s Not Just Working Long Hours
- It’s Not the Same Thing as Work Engagement
- Myth: There are “good” types of workaholics
- Myth: Workaholism is limited to certain occupations
- Myth: Workaholics are more productive
- Workaholism Is…
- Behavioral: Excessive Working
- Myth: Men are more likely than women to be workaholics
- Motivational: Inner Compulsion to Work
- Myth: Workaholism is innate and cannot be influenced by the environment
- Cognitive: Constant Work Rumination
- Myth: Technology allows us to be more productive, thus reducing our workaholism
- Emotional: Negative Feelings When Not Working
- Workaholism Self-Assessment
- Key Takeaways
- workaholism is on the rise and is detrimental for the workaholics, those around them, and their organizations.
- Workaholism is more than just working long hours; it involves four key components: behavioral, motivational, cognitive, and emotional.
- Workaholism is not a clinical condition.
- Workaholism lies on a spectrum; even those with a few workaholic tendencies may be at risk for negative consequences.
- There is no “good” workaholism.
- Workaholics are not more productive.
- Men and women are equally likely to be workaholics.
- Technology has exacerbated our workaholic tendencies.
Chapter 2: A Portrait of the Modern Workaholic
- Signs of Workaholic Behavior
- Rumination: Always Thinking about Work
- Overcommitment: Always Taking On Too Much and Not Knowing Limits
- Busyness: Always Doing
- Perfectionism: Nothing is Ever Good Enough
- Gender and Workaholism
- What Drives Adverse Health Effects in Workaholics?
- Workaholics Operate in Constant Fight-or-Flight Mode
- Workaholics Suffer from Lack of Effective Recovery Experiences
- What are the Specific Health Effects of Workaholism?
- Heart Disease
- Weakened Autoimmune Responses
- Poor Sleep
- Anxiety and Depression
- Other Addictions
- Effects of Workaholism on Those around the Workaholic
- At Home
- At Work
- Letting perfect be the enemy of good
- Poor delegation
- Poor scoping
- Catastrophizing
- Key Takeaways
Chapter 3: Kicking the Habit
- Awareness Activities
- Activity 1: Reflect on Your Current and Future Self
- Are my work hours sustainable?
- Is my work behaviour affecting my health?
- How often am I bringing work home or thinking about work when I am supposed to be doing something else?
- Am I able to fully disengage from my work without giving into temptations to check my work email "one last time" that day?
- Are there times when I regret missing an important event for my child or partner due to my work?
- Activity 2: Record Your Workaholic Patterns
- Right now, open a new "note" on your phone, take out a piece of paper, or open a new file on your computer
- Record day and time
- Write down what you have been doing for the past hour
- Write down any work-related activities you did while doing the things you listed in the previous step. And record notes about any thoughts that popped into your mind during the past hour about work
- Finally, record the emotions you felt with each of these work thoughts.
If it helps, you can make a template with simple prompts:
- Date-time
- What I've been doing this hour
- Work activities
- Work thoughts
- Feelings
- Activity 1: Reflect on Your Current and Future Self
- Counteracting Workaholic Behavior
- Redefining “Urgent”
- Reinventing the To-Do list (Eisenhower matrix)
- Learning to Say No and Delegate (Adam Grant's triaging)
- Who to help? (ranking)
- When to help? At designated times that didn't interfere with my goals
- How to help? In areas where I had a unique contribution to make
- Fixing the workaholic Clock
- Controlling Rumination
- Embracing Rest and Recovery
- Psychological detachment
- Physical activity
- Relaxation
- Mastery experiences
- Key Takeaways
Chapter 4: Are You an Enabler?
- Societal Forces Driving Workaholism
- The Impact of the Industrial Revolution
- Work Devotion Schema
- Organizational Forces Driving Workaholism
- How Organizations Work
- Rewarding Overwork
- Organizational Signals - list the signs of workaholic culture under each
- Physical Artifacts
- Socialization
- Stories and Legends
- Norms
- Rituals
- Rewards
- Role Models
- Taking Stock
- Beginning to Change
- Key Takeaways
Chapter 5: Fixing Your Culture of Overwork
- Overcoming Pushback: The Evidence Doesn’t Lie
- Disassembling a Culture of Overwork
- Step 1: Assess Your Company’s Baseline Level of Overwork and Its Origins
- Organizational level
- Job level
- Personal level (who gets recognition and what is it for)
- Step 2: Plan for Incremental Change by Targeting Places Where Change Will Be Most Effective Soonest
- Identify the purpose and goals of the trial
- Build trust from the ground up, not the top down
- Carefully outline the trial experiment
- Clearly communicate the plan and keep the conversation going
- Step 3: Execute the Trial Experiment, Learn, and Iterate
- Step 1: Assess Your Company’s Baseline Level of Overwork and Its Origins
- Strategies for Actionable Change
- Reward Output, Not Input
- Break the Cycle of Responsiveness
- Actively signal consideration of diverse work schedules and aim to reduce response urgency
- Coordinate activies for efficient interactions
- Clarify expectations and reinforce ideal channels
- Add Speed Bumps
- Lead by Example
- Supervisors should model non-workaholic behaviour
- Leaders should not create an amount of work and a deadline to complete it that forces people to work in non-work time
- Leaders should communicate new models of high performance
- Four Organizational To-Dos to Combat Workaholism
- Lower demands: reset expectations on timelines and deadlines
- Lower connectivity: change norms on expectations for connectedness and responsiveness
- Increase control: give people control of when they will or will not work
- Increase support: get leaders and supervisors to reward non-workaholic behaviour (formally and informally)
- Key Takeaways
Conclusion: Let’s Resculpt
Appendix: Overwork Assessments
- Multidimensional Workaholism Scale
- Workaholics Anonymous 20 Questions - free guide