Most of us would say that we work to live, but there are a sad few of us, he says trying to avoid the mirror, who are accused of the opposite. Is work a means to an end or is it the end itself?

It isn’t as straightforward an answer as you might want it to be. There is a growing feeling in the service industry that standards need to be set very high and 24/7 availability through modern communication devices does nothing to lower that bar.

It depends a lot on your status, of course. Those of us who are self-employed live or fall in financial terms by the profits we make from the hours we work. So how do we avoid the long working hours that are all too commonplace amongst the country’s entrepreneurs?

Understanding the effect has to be the place to start. There are no medals given out simply because you work incredibly long hours. Train your clients/customers to understand that you need some time to yourself and that, whilst they can send you an email at a weekend, they should not expect a response until the new working week. It’s unlikely they will take their business somewhere else just because you didn’t respond to them on a Sunday morning.

Review working practices to avoid emailing at unsociable hours

One charity with whom we have worked recently have an automated response if you send an email out of office hours, explaining that it is unhealthy for their staff to be reading it at that time and therefore you won’t get an immediate reply. It then suggests that the sender should review his/her working practices to avoid having to send emails at that time of day. Maybe there is something to be learned from this approach?

Over 50% of working days lost to illness last year were a result of work-related stress. Perhaps that says it all? Maybe we all need to find a way of slowing the world down before it’s too late?