I heard something interesting on the news last week. The average lunch ‘hour’ for the average worker has shrunk to about 33 minutes. It seems there is way too much work for us to do so that we can’t take any time off to relax at midday and have lunch. The news reporter even said that he didn’t take a lunch break because he was afraid it ‘wouldn’t look good’. It seems like a lot of this is just a facade. People are all afraid for their boss to know that they actually have time and take time to go to lunch. People want their bosses to consider them ‘good employees’ and ‘committed employees’ so they spend way too much time in the office so that they will ‘look good’.
I think this is a worrisome trend. We need to live balanced lives; lives with time to work, time to relax, time to eat, and time to sleep. Think about it, ideally we work 8 hours, we sleep 8 hours, and we have 8 hours to ourselves. It’s a nice balanced day. However, this is slowly creeping to working 10- 12 hours, sleeping 5-6 hours, and only spending 4 – 5 hours in leisure, recreation, and family time. Where is the balance?
I have noticed this trend continuing over the last few years of my corporate career. So, I’m calling for managers from all areas of the work force to encourage their employees to live balanced lives. The best way to encourage this is to live balanced lives for yourselves. A relaxed and balanced mind is much more productive than a cluttered and overly busy mind.
Let’s all plan a full and relaxing lunch time this week. Let’s even spend it building relationships by talking with our co-workers, friends, and loved ones over lunch. Work is great and we all need to be productive, and the highest productivity we can accomplish is a product of a balanced life.
