Tuesday, February 4, 2014

10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard - TIME

10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard

http://business.time.com/2014/02/03/10-reasons-to-stop-working-so-hard/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29


It's time to add up all the ways in which working ridiculous hours hurts you and the people around you--and put a stop to the madness.


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This post is in partnership with Inc., which offers useful advice, resources, and insights to entrepreneurs and business owners. The article below was originally published at Inc.com.
“30 hours of working and still going strooong,” 24-year-old copywriter Mita Dira tweeted from Indonesia on December 14. Only she wasn’t. A few hours later she collapsed in a coma and died the following day, a victim of exhaustion, overwork, and an energy drink called Krating Daeng, also known as “Thai Red Bull.”
Sadly, young people dying of overwork is not unheard-of in some parts of Asia, but this particular death quickly went viral. Partly it was because she worked for the American ad agency Young & Rubicam. Mostly it was that tweet, one of a series in which she recounted her ridiculously work-laden life. In one tweet earlier that year she contemplated moving her bed to the office.  In another she was delighted to arrive home before midnight.
Reading about her felt like a wake-up call. In addition to being a full-time freelance writer and president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, I’ve completed and am now selling a memoir, and I curate a popular reading series here in Woodstock, New York. Add many weeks of travel over the past few months and the pressures of Christmas shopping and family visits and somewhere along the way I had tipped over the edge. I was constantly at my desk, or else rushing, late for an appointment. I was nearly always short of sleep.
It was no good–not for me, or my family, or the publications I write for, or the organizations I serve. So I’ve taken Diran’s story as an opportunity to stop, think about what’s really important, and create a more rational work schedule. Yes, there are still long hours, but I’m making sure to have time for rest too, and even a whole day off every week or two. And yes, there have been some missed deadlines but not so many as I feared. I discovered that a well-rested person works much more efficiently than an exhausted one.
That’s one good reason to stop working ridiculous hours. Here are 10 more:

1. Quantity kills quality.

You want to be excellent at what you do. But the more tasks you take on, the smaller your chance of doing an excellent job at any of them. Cutting as many items off your task list as you can ups the odds that you’ll do a killer job on the things that matter most.

2. Sleep matters.

“The way to a more productive, more inspired, more joyful life is getting enough sleep,” Arianna Huffington said in a 2011 TED talk. She would know. She fainted from exhaustion and broke her cheekbone and is now something of a sleep evangelist. “I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he’d gotten only four hours’ sleep the night before,” she continued. She considered retorting: “If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting.”

3. You suck when it counts.

I can tell you from experience that going into a meeting tired and distracted means you will suck in that meeting. You’ll be bad at generating new ideas, finding creative solutions to problems, and worst of all you’ll suck at listening attentively to the people around you. That disrespects them and wastes their time as well as yours.

4. Your mood is a buzzkill.

The kind of irritability and impatience that goes with being overworked and behind schedule will cast a black cloud over the people around you both at work and at home. If you’re an employee, it will damage your career. If you’re a small business owner, it will harm your business.

5. Your judgment is impaired.

The research is conclusive: sleep deprivation impairs decision-making. As a leader, poor judgment is something you can’t afford. Crossing some tasks off your to-do list, handing them to someone else, or finishing some things late is well worth it if it means you bring your full concentration and intelligence to the tough decisions your job requires.

6. You’re setting a bad example.

The work schedule and tone you set for yourself will likely be mirrored by the smartest and most ambitious of your employees. What kind of leaders and bosses do you want them to be? Do you want the benefit of their brightest ideas and best judgment? Then don’t create an environment where everyone vies to see how many hours they can work without falling over.

7. There will always be more work.

If you run your own business, there’s always a new project to start, a new customer to pursue, or a new technology to try out. You’ll never be out of new work to do. And if you work for someone else, getting a lot done will lead to being given more tasks. That can be a good thing, but only if you have the time and energy to do them with excellence.

8. You’re hurting your relationships.

Somewhere along the way my husband sat me down and insisted that I make some time to talk with him every day. I’m blessed not only with a strong marriage but an unusually outspoken spouse. There may be people in your life feeling as shut out as he was who haven’t come out and said so. Don’t wait until it’s too late.

9. You’re screwing up your health.

Did Mita Diran know she was risking her life by working so hard? It seems clear from her tweets that she didn’t, and if she had, she’d have made a different choice. I’m sure you’re smart enough not to work 30 hours straight, but do you let your work schedule interfere with things like healthy eating and regular exercise, not to mention sleep? If so, then it’s possible you’re shortening your life by overwork. Is it worth it?

10. Most of the work is less important than you think.

A few years ago, hospice worker Bronnie Ware famously published the top five regrets she heard from her dying patients. Those who’d had careers all regretted the number of hours they spent at work. But many of her patients also spoke of dreams they wished they’d fulfilled.
Put those two items together and there’s a lesson: If something will help you fulfill a lifelong dream, it’s worth spending long hours. If not, then it isn’t. So ask yourself: In 10 years, will I care about this? If the answer is no, then it’s probably time to quit and go get some rest.


Read more: 10 Reasons to Stop Working So Hard | TIME.com http://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/10-reasons-you-have-to-stop-working-so-hard.html#ixzz2sPGT1g8Y

10 Monumentally Important Twists in Facebook History - TIME

10 Monumentally Important Twists in Facebook History

http://business.time.com/2014/02/04/facebook-10-year-anniversary-history/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+timeblogs%2Fcurious_capitalist+%28TIME%3A+Business%29


Ten years ago Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg launched a social website called thefacebook.com from his Harvard dorm room. In the ensuing decade, the social media network now known simply as Facebook has gained 1.23 billion monthly active users and a $150 billion market capitalization. Along the way the site has added features and interfaces that define much of the way we interact online, both on Facebook and on other sites. It’s regularly courted controversy in its attempts to better serve its true customers (advertisers) by compelling users to offer up more public data. Here, we look back at ten of the most important moments in the company’s history.

Feb. 4, 2004 – Thefacebook.com Goes Live

As a sophomore at Harvard, Zuckerberg initially created a website called Facemash, which allowed students to vote on the attractiveness of their classmates. Zuckerberg was accused of hacking into school servers to access students’ photos and quickly shut the site down due to pressure Harvard administrators. Just three months later he would launch thefacebook.com, a social network that allowed Harvard students to create personal profiles that outlined their interests, along with co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saveri.  The direct inspiration for Facebook has been a subject of much debate for years, with a trio of Zuckerberg’s classmates claiming in a lawsuit that he stole the idea from them. Facebook eventually reached a settlement with the classmates in 2008.

October 2005 – Photo Albums Arrive

Believe it or not, the original version of Facebook didn’t allow users to create photo albums or tag friends in pictures, features that now drive much of the activity on the site. When Facebook added albums, it also included the option for users to upload an unlimited number of photos, which was unheard of among popular social networks at the time. Today Facebook users upload more than 350 million photos each day.

April 2006 – Going Mobile

Facebook now boasts that it is a mobile-first company, but that transformation began all the way back in 2006, when the company launched its first cell phone applications through deals with Verizon, Sprint and Cingular. While mobile functionality was initially focused around posting status updates, the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 and an accompanying Facebook app in 2008 quickly transformed the way users interacted on the network. Now the majority of Facebook usage happens on mobile devices.

Sept. 5, 2006 – The News Feed Changes the Way We Share

Once upon a time, Facebook was more about updating your own profile than following what other people were doing. That changed when the company rolled out the first version of its News Feed in 2006, which pulled in info on friends’ status updates, new connections, birthdays and other data. The new feature was initially met with anger because (wait for it…) people thought it was an invasion of their privacy, but Zuckerbergdefended the News Feed. Now, seeing a constant stream of your friends’ postings forms the basis of every social media site from Twitter to Instagram to Pinterest.

Sept. 26, 2006 – Open to Everyone

Just after Facebook launched the News Feed, it opened its doors to a much a a wider audience. Initially the site had only been for students, but in September 2006 the company decided to allow anyone above the age of 13 to join. Today it’s standard for everyone from teenagers to grandmas to have a Facebook profile. This has helped the social network reach an unprecedented scale, but it’s also driving some of its youngest users to search for online networks where they won’t be hounded by their parents.

February 2009 – A Privacy Controversy Spurs Change

Facebook is perpetually embroiled in controversy over its privacy options (or lack thereof in some cases). Perhaps no situation got as heated as the one in February 2009, when a change to the social network’s terms of service implied that the company could hold onto users’ posts and photos forever, even after they terminated their Facebook accounts. Users were quickly up in arms, forming Facebook groups protesting the change and threatening to leave the network. Facebook called the outrage a “misunderstanding” but quickly reverted to the original terms of service. After the incident the company allowed users to vote on future changes to its terms of service and privacy policy, but that initiative ended in 2012.

October 1,  2010 – To the Silver Screen

You know you’ve become a pop culture icon when Hollywood wants to make a movie about your life. So it was with The Social Network, a retelling of Facebook’s origin starring Jessie Eisenberg as the company’s hoodie-toting CEO. The film was criticized for several glaring inaccuracies, including its overall misportrayal of Zuckerberg, (he is apparently not as much of a hothead in real life). But the movie did win several Academy Awards and grossed more than $220 million globally. The film’s success helped transform Zuckerberg into a household name.

April 9, 2012 – The Instagram Buy

In one of most high-profile tech buyouts in recent memory, Facebook agreed to scoop up the photo-sharing social network Instagram for a cool $1 billion in cash and stock in the spring of 2012. At the time, Instagram was just a year and half old and had only 13 employees. But Facebook likely saw a potential competitor in its infancy, as well as an opportunity to expand its mobile business. Since the buyout, Instagram has grown to more than 150 million users and is beginning to generate revenue for Facebook through ads. Photo messaging app Snapchat was recently offered an even more outrageous $3 billion to join the Facebook fold, but the startup declined the offer.

May 18, 2012 – Botched IPO

Hype was at a fever pitch when Facebook arrived on Wall Street in the biggest tech IPO ever in May 2012. But a series of poor decisions soured investors on Facebook for more than a year. The Nasdaq was unable to keep up with huge demand for shares, so some investors couldn’t complete transactions or were forced to buy at incorrect prices (Nasdaq was eventually fined $10 million for these blunders). Facebook also overpriced its own stock at an initial price of $38. The shares got virtually no first-day pop and tumbled to half that price in the months following the IPO on fears that Facebook would not be able to effectively monetize its mobile services.

Jan. 31, 2014 – Facebook stock reaches all-time high

After more than a year of poor performance on Wall Street, Facebook finally saw its stock rebound last summer when it reported a strong surge in mobile revenue. More strong quarterly earnings reports in October and January have put the company’s stock on a steady rise for months. It closed above $62 per share on Friday, an all-time high. With big growth opportunities expected to come from Instagram and video ads this year, it’s likely that Facebook’s revenues will continue to rise.


Read more: Facebook 10 Year Anniversary: 10 Historic Moments | TIME.com http://business.time.com/2014/02/04/facebook-10-year-anniversary-history/#ixzz2sPFPMoed