Working 55 hours a week: why an end date matters.
Working 55 hours a week is exactly what a forty-hour job plus fifteen business hours adds up to. However, a 2021 study by the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization named fifty-five hours as the line where risk rises. So a bounded trial matters.
What the 2021 research showed.
In 2021 the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization published the first global study of long hours. Above fifty-five hours, compared with thirty-five to forty, stroke risk rose by about thirty-five per cent. Also, the risk of dying from heart disease rose by about seventeen. These long working hours health risks were tied to seven hundred and forty-five thousand deaths in a single year.
Why working 55 hours a week for years is different.
The mortality research followed people working those hours across decades, not twelve weeks. Therefore the overwork stroke risk points at open-ended arrangements more than a bounded trial. That is why chapter 9 put a date on the end of the trial. So the people still doing this in year four should read this twice.
The sleep you lose much sooner.
Below the mortality figures, there is a cost that shows up much sooner. People holding more than one job sleep less, losing around forty minutes a night at weekends. Women working nights lose closer to an hour. As a result, you get worse at both things, and you won't notice.
Before you keep working 55 hours a week, write an end date.
Write a firm end date for your trial on your page, as chapter 9 asked.
Note tonight how many hours you slept, and check it again next weekend.
From the book.
In 2021 the World Health Organization and the International Labour Organization published the first global study of what long working hours do to people, and the threshold they identified was fifty-five hours a week. Above it, compared with a standard thirty-five to forty hour week, the risk of stroke rose by about thirty-five per cent and the risk of dying from heart disease by about seventeen.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 10: What the double life costs
Questions about working 55 hours a week.
Is working 55 hours a week for twelve weeks dangerous?
The research does not say so. It followed people working those hours across decades, which is why a bounded trial matters.
How many deaths did the study link to long hours?
Seven hundred and forty-five thousand in a single year, up nearly a third since 2000.
Why might I not notice the damage?
Because the person doing the noticing is the one who is short of sleep.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 10, “What the double life costs”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Who owns my side project: read the clause tonight.
- 02 Employee Invention Laws by Country: Four Answers.
- 03 Weekly Time Audit: Find Your Fifteen Real Hours.
- 04 Working 55 hours a week: why an end date matters.
- 05 Does loving your job prevent burnout: the real answer.
- 06 Attention residue: the two kinds of strain.
- 07 Why side projects get abandoned: who is waiting.