You’re Best Response To COVID-19? Work Less
Hungry Judges
I’m still in COVID-19 panic mode, feeling like every day is too short to get through the long list of stuff that just keeps getting longer. I know better, and I believe all the research on the negative effects of working too many hours, but I just couldn’t stop. That is, until I found myself going back to Jeff Sutherland’s oldie-but-goodie, Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time. I hadn’t read the book in a while, and a section title Working Too Hard Makes More Work was just what I needed.
Sutherland discusses the findings of a paper published in 2011, Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions. A group of researchers looked at over a thousand judicial rulings by eight Israeli judges, and found that a prisoner’s chance of parole depended on when the judge last took a break. As judges tire and get hungry, they slip towards the easy option of denying parole.
As Sutherland points out, “When we don’t have any energy reserves left, we’re prone to start making unsound decisions. This phenomenon has been labeled “ego depletion.” The idea is that making any choice involves an energy cost. It’s an odd sort of exhaustion — you don’t feel physically tired, but your capacity to make good decisions diminishes. This disturbing evidence reveals that we have a very limited capability to make decisions, and the more energy-depleted we are, and the less downtime we get, the worse we are at it.”
Hustle Harder
When you start a new venture or join a startup, you know what you’re getting into, including long hours and little sleep. You’re always on, always hustling, and doing whatever it takes to survive long enough to build a great company.
Its a rush, and it feels like you’re doing the right thing, the necessary thing, but the evidence is clear - working too hard doesn’t improve your outcomes (or as Sutherland puts it, it just makes more work).
As tempting as it is to go into work-overdrive as you respond to COVID-19 and the many possible existential threats you’ll need to face in the weeks ahead, now more than ever, working less, sleeping more and saving your energy is mission critical.
All That Matters
In a crisis, especially one that’s forcing your team to make more critical decisions in a single week than you had to make all last year, the quality of each decision you make really matters. Given all the unknowns and everything that’s outside your control, taking a break and getting a good night’s sleep, not soldiering on and pulling another all nighter, will determine whether you’re able to make the most of the hand you’re dealt.
So read a book, listen to a podcast, write a blog (which is why I’m here), do whatever you need to do to give your brain a break, so you can come back with a clear head, because the next decision you make could be the thing that saves or sinks your company.
