For years, I kept myself as busy as possible. I always had long-term and short-term goals, which I used for generating my to-do list. I earned a graduate degree and professional designations while I was working full time. I even managed to eat, sleep, and exercise regularly. Then, my husband became ill, and I almost lost him. The sense of guilt haunts me for being idle. Since my husband could not do some of the house chores, I took over all of them.
Despite the additional work, I managed to do some exercises with my busy schedule until some events would push me to the edge. Then, I was too busy to do some tasks such as exercising, sleeping, cooking good meals, or spending my time with my family or friends – which I now think should have been higher on my priority list. I neglected my body, social life, and mental life. As a result, I gained weight, felt ill and unhappy. My condition was affecting my husband. When I am felt low and sick, it made my husband feel sad.
I think I exceeded my actual capacity. Since it seemed to be working, I thought I could maintain this schedule rather than prioritizing tasks or delegating work. How arrogant and wrong I was. I felt physically and mentally ill several months ago. Since then, I have been rethinking my lifestyle. If I did not feel sick physically several months ago, I probably would have continued to ignore this impending problem.
It puzzled me why I could not detect this problem earlier. Perhaps, I have never seen this situation as a bad thing. We grow up with the mind that working hard is good behavior. My culture, Japanese, views overworked people as respectable people. We have people dying from overworking, which we describe as “Karoshi.” According to Reuters (2015), 1,456 Japanese people were reported dead from overworking in 2015; however, the actual number was probably ten times higher (para. 3). My parents always worked long and hard hours. My mother often came back late during month-end. Sometimes, she even brought back work at home and worked past midnight. My sister and I helped with household chores, but my mother worked a lot. Everyone around me worked long hours. This “overworking” syndrome is manifested in many countries throughout Asia. We believe that a respectable person must work hard; Confucius heavily influences this belief. I left my country a long time ago, but I never got rid of this norm or expectation.
Working excessively hard is physically and mentally unhealthy because the endless work puts us under a constant sense of urgency. The endless work makes us feel a lack of control. This feeling puts us under a lot of stress. When we are under constant pressure, our body goes into a fight-or-flight condition. According to Mayo Clinic (March 19, 2019), Our bodies increase adrenaline and cortisol production to prepare us to fight off danger. Of course, this is a survival mechanism. However, the long-term activation of the stress mechanism forces us to overexpose ourselves to cortisol and other stress hormones, which can harm our health in the long run (para 5-7). In my situation, my constant stress caused me anxiety, sleep problems, and weight gain. Unless I start managing my stress, I will endanger myself with a massive health risk. I realized I have to work on the root cause of my problems, leading me to be constantly stressed, which was my over-scheduling problem.
Working hard does not necessarily make us happy. Japanese often suffer from having low life satisfaction. According to the “life satisfaction” index from the organization for economic cooperation and development (OECD), Japan ranked one of the lowest among the 33 other member countries in the organization. Only 30% of Japanese perceived themselves as healthy, which was much lower than the OECD average of 69% (para. 1 – 3). I was getting unhappy because I noticed I was not getting things done as effectively as I thought. Why Should I be able to accomplish more? I lacked energy due to health neglect.
Hard work is not necessarily productive, and I was starting to notice this problem. I tend to make more errors. It took me longer to complete a single task as I became unhealthier. According to Morikawa Masayuki, the vice president of the research institute of economy, trade, and industry (March 5, 2019), Japanese productivity is the lowest among G7 countries. Their productivity is two-thirds of the United States. He pointed out that the Japanese work too long hours (para. 1- 9).
I still think it is good to work; however, we must understand our limits. Otherwise, we will risk our physical and mental health. If we are not careful, we could be working hard on something but not being very productive.
Life is all about making choices. Since we have limited time, we must be selective with what we do. Greg Mckeown (2020), the author of the book, essentialism, says this, instead of doing gazillions of things, accomplish the genuinely vital things. We must exercise essentialism, which is not about getting more things done, but it is all about allocating your time and energy to work on what is considered essential (pp. 6). It is just like business owners or managers who allocate their available resources to generate more profits for their company.
We should also choose a single highlighted task for the day. The task we prioritize must also satisfy us by completing it. Knapp and Zeratsky (2018) called this the most important thing as one high-priority goal, improving your satisfaction and providing energy to complete the rest of the tasks. This single priority must be significant and represent what you want to do. We must focus on this task and eliminate any distractions. Finally, we must make time to recharge your brain. Make time to exercise, eat food, sleep, allocate time for reflection and social time so that you can renew your energy (p. 20).
I started to be more selective on my to-do list. Initially, I was worried that I was doing less, so I ended up with two lists, one for work and one for personal; however, I had too many total items to complete to maintain a balanced life. Now I have only one list with six things, one of which is my highlight. Surprisingly, I feel much better with only six list items. When I work on my highlight, I shut myself off from any distractions. I often have classical music on because background music usually helps me focus on my task. I keep my body’s batteries charged by exercising, sleeping, talking with others, and eating good food. Of course, I still make bad choices which I usually noted at the end of the day. I usually know when I make a mistake because I feel less happy at the end of the day. It is ok to make mistakes because I will start a new day tomorrow. As Scarlett from Gone with the wind famously says, “I’ll think of it all tomorrow. At Tara. I can stand it then. … After all. Tomorrow is another day” (Mitchell, p. 1024). I will learn from what did not go well, but I try not to cry over the spilled milk. Ever since I became selective about what I do, I feel like I have gained control over my life with much greater energy.