Workaholism

“Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done, It just means you work more.”

“Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve.”

“They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. “

“They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force.”

“They even create crises. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime.”

They enjoy feeling like heroes.

“They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more.”

If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision-making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired.

“In the end, workaholics don’t actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics.”

They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they’re wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task.

Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.

Special thanks to David Heinemeier Hansson and Jason Fried