Workaholics fixate on inconsequential details (37signals)

May 10th, 2008 by jose

Extremely productive company 37signals (authors of  Ruby on Rails) have a short workaholicbut interesting post on workaholism. It seems that workaholics actually create situations that require more work. This makes sense. And there are plenty of opportunities to fabricate more work: focus on small, inconsequential details; say yes to things before you have finished what you are currently working on; have no idea how long it’ll take to finish your current project (this is a big one for programming), etc.

The problem is that many work environments actually encourage people to act the workaholic way (and look busy all the time). If your workplace is one of these, there’s little you can do.

I’m still not seeing any stats that prove that non-workaholics get more done than workaholics though :)

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2 Responses to “Workaholics fixate on inconsequential details (37signals)”

  1. Randy SpellingNo Gravatar Says:

    I work with a lot of people who seem chronically ‘busy’. It seems to me that workaholism is encouraged in our society more than any other addiction.

  2. WorkaholicNo Gravatar Says:

    As a self-diagnosed workaholic, I believe there is some truth in this. I especially relate to the idea of taking on more work before I even know what it entails and what my current work load really looks like.

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