Tim Ferris, in 4-Hour Workweek, discusses cutting back on the amount of work while simultaneously making more money. Although he doesn’t explicitly make the statement, I read it as “You only have so much energy to spend.”
Expending Energy Leads to Burnout
When you go into work in the morning you are going to expend energy. 9-5ers need to expend 8 hours of energy a day. It might not all be good energy. You might start your day checking email, or catching up on Facebook. And by the time noon rolls around you’ll expend energy going to lunch, come back and expend more energy maybe getting a thing or two done.
The thought of working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and expending energy on sometimes-meaningless tasks sounds like a path to burnout to me.
Maximum Energy
Instead of taking 8 hours, what if you spent two hours expending maximum energy. Two hours producing something of importance. And spent the rest of the day building the life you want. You don’t have to spend it cliff-diving or traveling, but maybe you could spend it helping your community or building a business.
You aren’t born with a limitless engine. When you sit idle, or in 1st gear, burning energy, eventually you’ll over cook the motor and burnout. Instead, if you rev yourself up to 100mph but stay there for only an hour or two a day you’ll be just as productive but have many more hours doing what makes you happy.
Four Hour Workweek
To me, cutting working hours to Tim’s ideal, four hours, seems preposterous, but he might be onto something. If you can be super productive for those four hours of work it frees up time to do the things that’ll refuel your engine.