How many hours a day do you work? If the answer is more than eight, on average, then you're working too long. Escape the long hours culture and start living again.

In Britain we work longer hours than in any other part of Europe. Other countries have already realised that working excessively long hours is bad for your health and leaves your life out of balance, without enough time for other vital areas like sleep, leisure and relationships.

No job, no matter how much you love it or how rewarding it is, should take over your life. Short bursts of longer working, for instance on a particular project, are fine, but it shouldn’t become a long-term pattern. There are only three reasons for working long hours:

1. The workplace culture - in other words that long hours are expected and are common practice
   
   
2. To feel good about yourself, feel important and earn brownie points (this follows on from the reason above)
   
   
3. To avoid other areas of our lives such as the lack of a satisfying romantic relationship

If you think that there’s a fourth reason – the amount of work on your plate – think again. This simply isn’t valid. When there’s too much to do it’s because the organisation is understaffed or badly organised or both.

Deciding to cut back
It is possible. If you want to work shorter hours here’s what to do:

1. Examine your working week and get really clear about what you spend your time doing. Write it all down. How much is ‘real’ work? How much is lunch/coffee/chat? How much is simply hanging around, waiting for meetings to end or bosses to see you?
   
   
2. Look for areas where you can save time. Cut down the breaks, the hanging about and the chat and get more done in your eight hours.
   
   
3. Look at what you do because you think you must. For instance, if you have a late meeting once or twice a week are you staying late on other days when you don’t need to?
   
   
   4. Get enough sleep. People in ‘long hours’ organisations tend to be short on sleep. Everyone needs to unwind after work and if you work late this leaves less time for rest. Being permanently tired will make you less effective at work and you’ll take longer to get your work done. Break the cycle by getting plenty of rest and then working at your best.
      
      
   5. Start letting people know, firmly but politely, that you’re not going to work all hours. Tell your boss you’ve finished your work and are going home. If you’ve done the work you need to then don’t worry about disapproving looks.
      
      
   6. If you’re the boss then set a great example by leaving earlier and encourage others to do this too. Working long hours doesn’t make you a good boss, working reasonable hours does.

   It’s not easy cutting back on hours when you’re put under pressure not to. But almost everyone can shorten their hours significantly with a bit of careful planning. Once you’ve cut your hours you may, of course, have to deal with things you’ve been putting off or avoiding in other areas of your life by using work as an excuse. But then you know, by now, that you’re up to any challenge and that there’s nothing you can’t sort out.