I was catching up with an old buddy yesterday over a quiet dinner at a café near his place. Like me, he had just left his first job, and somewhat eagerly anticipating the new one. Inevitably, we were soon chewing the fat on "life and work in Singapore".
Work-Life Imbalances
As we waxed philosophical on the importance of work-life balance, we talked about how many of our contemporaries (ourselves even) had fallen into the "work trap". Apparently, some of our ex-schoolmates were pulling long hours well up to midnight, with work left to spillover to the weekends. Ouch.
Everybody's Into The Long Haul
Name the job - Teachers, Copywriters, Journalists, people in Finance, staff at MacDonald's (now 24hrs) - in less than a generation, extreme working hours have become commonplace. There's hardly time for anything else apart from work or recovering from it.
Some Simple Maths, If You Please
Let's look at a typical week of some friends of ours:
| Activity
| Time Spent
| Percentage of a Waking Hours
(24hrs x 7 days = 168hrs)
|
| Working Hours
| 12hrs x 5 = 60hrs
Or
12hrs x 6days =
72hrs
| 36%
43%
|
| Showering /Dressing up /Cleaning up
| 1hr x 7days =
7hrs
| 4%
|
| Traveling (work or play)
| 1.5hrs x 7days=
10.5hrs
| 6%
|
| Meals
| 1.5hrs x 7days=
10.5hrs
| 6%
|
That leaves about 47% - 40% of the week to do everything else including sleep. In actual hours, that works out to 68 - 80 hours a week, or 10 - 11 hours of "free" personal time a day. Clock in your 8 hours of sleep, and you'll be left with about 14 hours weekly, or 2 hours daily on average. Oh wait, that also includes the weekend break of a day (if they allow themselves that luxury) which works out to mere minutes of free time on the weekdays.
Feeling tired yet?
I was. For almost 2 years, when I was in my previous "high-tempo" job, I had to pull those same hours. So, I speak from experience - if you're working hard to build that career (and I trust you have good reason to), I hope you took all the risks into consideration - be it your health, the spouse, the kids, or your sanity. Take time to settle your priorities, because if Dr. Covey is right, then "Nobody on their death bed wished they'd spent more time at the office" - something worth thinking about when you're in your cubicle at 11:30pm.
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