Career Management: The Power of Doing Less
2013 has been a hectic but rewarding year for my career. I got my coveted promotion in my job but in exchange for that was heavier workload, presentations, meetings and new projects. I found myself spending more time traveling and less quality time with my family. Sometimes I wonder if the promotion is worthwhile and question if life is all about work. So what if we can climb to the top but neglect our loved ones, families and things we really wanted to do with our lives? Is life really all about bringing home the bacon and paying the housing loan?
During this short holiday break, I am glad to have some spare time to do some reading on career management. Basically I want to start 2014 brand new and don’t want to go through the same motion as in 2013, so I checked with Wiley whether they have any books on career management. To this, I was given the chance to do a book review on Fergus O’Connell’s The Power of Doing Less, a refreshing 135 pages book which you can probably finish reading in half a day.
As each year goes by, we find ourselves working harder and harder. We spend more time at work, thinking about work, bringing work home with us. Work now invades our personal life in a way that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. Remember when the media used to talk about having to ‘educate people for leisure’? The very notion raises a bitter or incredulous laugh these days.
In the last twenty years there has been an unbelievable increase in the volume of things people are having to do and the stress that people are under. High levels of overload have become the norm. Especially since the collapse of the banks people are being told things like they have to ‘work smarter, not harder’ and ‘do more with less’ and that they’re ‘lucky to have a job’.
What keeps people awake at night is exactly this idea that they are lucky to have a job. There is also the constant fear that no matter how well they perform, that the company could easily decide to dispense with them or move all the work to a cheaper economy. As a result people do work harder and harder, trying to show more and more willing.
This book won’t stop organizations from moving their operations to cheaper economies. But it will show that this hamster-on-the-wheel approach won’t work and that there is an alternative.
During this short holiday break, I am glad to have some spare time to do some reading on career management. Basically I want to start 2014 brand new and don’t want to go through the same motion as in 2013, so I checked with Wiley whether they have any books on career management. To this, I was given the chance to do a book review on Fergus O’Connell’s The Power of Doing Less, a refreshing 135 pages book which you can probably finish reading in half a day.
As each year goes by, we find ourselves working harder and harder. We spend more time at work, thinking about work, bringing work home with us. Work now invades our personal life in a way that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. Remember when the media used to talk about having to ‘educate people for leisure’? The very notion raises a bitter or incredulous laugh these days.
In the last twenty years there has been an unbelievable increase in the volume of things people are having to do and the stress that people are under. High levels of overload have become the norm. Especially since the collapse of the banks people are being told things like they have to ‘work smarter, not harder’ and ‘do more with less’ and that they’re ‘lucky to have a job’.
What keeps people awake at night is exactly this idea that they are lucky to have a job. There is also the constant fear that no matter how well they perform, that the company could easily decide to dispense with them or move all the work to a cheaper economy. As a result people do work harder and harder, trying to show more and more willing.
This book won’t stop organizations from moving their operations to cheaper economies. But it will show that this hamster-on-the-wheel approach won’t work and that there is an alternative.
ISBN: 978-0-85708-421-7
Contents Overview:
• Covers overload and burn out, maintaining work/life balance, the philosophy of action, decision making, work-sharing and the social implications of toiling ’til you drop
• Makes a powerful case that learning when and how to say no is the life skill you need the most in life
• Packed with practical tips on how to get more from less, manage your time better and separate the work that works from the work that hurts
• Full of entertaining quotes, revolutionary ideas, fun illustrations and disturbing statistics that will have you questioning the status quo in new ways
Ha! Ha!
i think you only have the power to do more or less when you have the power of “Don’t have to worry about what you spend on”. No you don’t have the power now to do less if you need to read this book.
Agreed. That is why so many people can not figure out how to prioritize their work.
Regards,
Gerald
Very funny indeed.
Regards,
Gerald