Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong

by Eric Barker

Productivity declines so steeply after fifty-five hours that “someone who puts in seventy hours produces nothing more with those extra fifteen hours.” All they are creating is stress. A paper from the Journal of Socio-Economics found that the happiness decrease that overtime stress produces is bigger than the happiness boost that extra overtime pay produces.

Sleep has been shown to affect decision-making, ethics, your health, and how much time you pointlessly screw around on the Internet.

the really sneaky thing about sleep deprivation: you’re not necessarily aware of it. Just because you don’t feel tired doesn’t mean you’re well rested and performing optimally.

Ten hours of work when you’re exhausted, cranky, and distracted might be far less productive than three hours when you’re “in the zone.” So why not focus less on hours and more on doing what it takes to make sure you’re at your best?

Why is it that companies that wouldn’t think twice about firing you for being drunk on the job don’t mind creating conditions that effectively make you drunk on the job?

taking a two-week vacation increased work engagement and decreased burnout for up to a month.

We need fun. We need rest. They increase our chances of success and they benefit your employer as well.

“Energy, not time, is the fundamental currency of high performance.”

Having fun, getting sleep, and taking vacations may take time away from work but can more than make up for it in terms of quality and engagement.

“door dwell”—how long before the doors close. It’s usually under four seconds. Doesn’t matter. Not fast enough.

For most of human existence when we looked around us there were one or two hundred people in our tribe and we could be the best at something. We could stand out and be special and valuable. Now our context is a global tribe of seven-plus billion. There’s always someone better to compare yourself to, and the media is always reporting on these people, which raises the standards just when you think you may be close to reaching them. If these mental expectations weren’t bad enough, the modern world has actually made things more competitive. The talent market is global—which means if you can’t hack it, companies don’t sweat it. Someone on the other side of the planet certainly can. Computers make things more efficient, requiring fewer people, and the global talent market offers ten times as many applicants for every spot.

We love choices and the twenty-first century has given us nearly infinite choices. With technology, we now always have the choice to be working. The office doors don’t close at five P.M. anymore. Every minute we spend with friends or playing with our kids is a minute we could be working. So every moment is a decision. That decision didn’t exist in the past. But having it in the back of our heads all the time is enormously stressful.

We love having choices. We hate making choices. Having choices means having possibilities. Making choices means losing possibilities. And having so many choices increases the chance of regret. When work is always a choice, everything is a trade-off. More time working means less time with your friends, spouse, or kids.

research with top executives. Yes, the group was quite accomplished career-wise, but behind the veil things sounded a lot more like Ted Williams and Albert Einstein: “When we probed further, we found that many were not necessarily doing very well with their other targets: family, long-term business health, building a place to work that people actually value, developing a personal character that holds up when they got out of the public spotlight.” We can’t sequence relationships. They need regular, consistent attention.

You need a personal definition of success. Looking around you to see if you’re succeeding is no longer a realistic option. Trying to be a relative success compared to others is dangerous. This means your level of effort and investment is determined by theirs, which keeps you running full speed all the time to keep up. Vaguely saying you want to “be number one” isn’t remotely practical in a global competition where others are willing to go 24/7. We wanted options and flexibility. We got them. Now there are no boundaries. You can no longer look outside yourself to determine when to stop. The world will always tell you to just keep going.

You have to make a decision. The world will not draw a line. You must. You need to ask What do I want? Otherwise you’re only going to get what they want.

“having it all” isn’t possible when others determine the limits in each category. We used to rely on the world to tell us when we were done, but now the balance must come from you. Otherwise you risk ending up with that number-one regret of the dying: not having had the courage to live the life you wanted

we have to become “choosers” instead of “pickers.” A picker selects from the options available, leading us into false dichotomies created by the options we see in front of us. But a chooser “is thoughtful enough to conclude that perhaps none of the available alternatives are satisfactory, and that if he or she wants the right alternative, he or she may have to create it.”

We all know the good life means more than money . . . but none of us is exactly sure what those other things are or how to get them. Let’s face it: money’s pretty easy to count and it consistently brings some happiness for at least a short period of time. We all know love and friends and other stuff are important too . . . but they’re a heck of a lot more complicated and we can’t just have them delivered to our house by Amazon Prime. Evaluating life by one metric turns out to be a key problem. We can’t use just one yardstick to measure a successful life.

multiple yardsticks for life were necessary. For instance, to have a good relationship with your family you need to spend time with them. So hours spent together is one way to measure. But if that time is spent screaming at each other, that’s not good either. So you need to measure quantity and quality.

HAPPINESS: having feelings of pleasure or contentment in and about your life 2. ACHIEVEMENT: achieving accomplishments that compare favorably against similar goals others have strived for 3. SIGNIFICANCE: having a positive impact on people you care about 4. LEGACY: establishing your values or accomplishments in ways that help others find future success They also came up with a simple way to interpret the feelings these four need to provide in your life: 1. HAPPINESS = ENJOYING 2. ACHIEVEMENT = WINNING 3. SIGNIFICANCE = COUNTING (TO OTHERS) 4. LEGACY = EXTENDING

You want to be contributing to the four needs on a regular basis. If you ignore any of them, you’re headed for a collapsing strategy. Measuring life by one yardstick won’t work. Delay any for too long and you’re sequencing.

always worry about people who say, ‘I’m going to do this for ten years; I really don’t like it very well. And then I’ll do this . . .’ That’s a lot like saving sex up for your old age. Not a very good idea.”

How do you know when you’re doing enough “winning” and need to put more into the “counting” or “extending” categories? A good starting point is asking yourself What’s “good enough”?

There used to be twenty-six different types of Head and Shoulders shampoo. Procter & Gamble said “Enough” and cut it down to a slightly more reasonable fifteen, which produced a 10 percent bump in profits.

those constraints are welcome. They make decisions easier. They make life simpler. They make it “not your fault.” So they make us happier. We believe these constraints are ultimately worth the trade-off. Limitless freedom is alternately paralyzing and overwhelming. Plus, the only place we get good limits these days is when we determine them ourselves, based on our values.

People handle having lots of choices in two ways: by “maximizing” or “satisficing.” Maximizing is exploring all the options, weighing them, and trying to get the best. Satisficing is thinking about what you need and picking the first thing that fulfills those needs. Satisficing is living by “good enough.” In the modern world, maximizing is impossible and unfulfilling. Imagine exploring Amazon.com for the “best book for you.” Good luck evaluating every single one. You’d need years. But there’s a deeper, less obvious problem. You might think that evaluating more possibilities would lead to objectively better results—and you’d be right. But it also leads to less subjective happiness with what you end up with.

Maximizers are on that treadmill of expectations and experience more regret because they always feel they could do better.

the end, when you calculate all factors of stress, results, and effort, satisficing is actually the method that maximizes.

you need a plan, or you’re always going to feel like you’re not doing enough. You won’t be facing Chinese armies or Eastern European enemies. Your war is first and last with yourself. But that’s a battle you can definitely win with the right plan.

We don’t decide what we want and then go get it. Things are shoved in our faces and then we shrug and say, “Okay, I guess.” Basically, we let other people tell us what to do.

we often don’t choose to do what really makes us happy; we choose what’s easy.

Without a plan, we do what’s passive and easy—not what is really fulfilling.

the most effective method for reducing stress was having a plan. When we think about obstacles ahead of time and consider how to overcome them, we feel in control. That’s the secret to really getting things done. As fMRI studies show, a feeling of control motivates us to act. When we think we can make a difference, we’re more likely to engage.

it’s not actually being in control that causes all these changes. It’s just the feeling of control.

when you’re stressed out, you literally can’t think straight. Under stress, your center of rational thought—the prefrontal cortex—just throws up its arms and quits. Your limbic system, that ol’ lizard brain of emotions, takes the reins.

Not everyone can implement the following ideas exactly as written, but just dismissing the things that seem like a stretch is a mistake. Obey the spirit of the law even if you can’t follow the letter. Simply put: try.

TRACK YOUR TIME

note which hours are contributing to which of the big four: 1. HAPPINESS = ENJOYING 2. ACHIEVEMENT = WINNING 3. SIGNIFICANCE = COUNTING (TO OTHERS) 4. LEGACY = EXTENDING Or is that hour going in the “None of the above” bucket?

half of crimes happen in just 5 percent of the city. This is called “hot spot” policing. Giving those few areas twice the number of police patrols cut crime in half in the hot spots and reduced citywide emergency calls by 6 to 13 percent.

So look for hot spots in your schedule. When do you waste the most time? When do you overdo one of the big four at the expense of another? You’ll get more bang for your buck changing your routines around these hot spots than by a vague notion of “working less” or “trying to spend more time with the family.”

look for trends that are working. When do you get disproportionate results? Early morning or late evening? At home or at the office? Try ...

You want the balance of the big four that works for you. Make a decision on how much time you want to allot to each per week. You can revise it later, but you need an answer now.

TALK TO YOUR BOSS

If you really want a better work–life balance, don’t make assumptions. Sit down with your boss and actually discuss it.

Ask your boss for a clear idea of your role and their expectations, and whether this or that change would really be an issue.

Ask for an estimate of how much time they want you doing “shallow work,” like responding to emails and sitting in meetings, and how much they want you cranking on “deep work” that really produces results.

getting more clarity about what you’re expected to do reduces strain when work demands are high. It’s easier to make the right decisions and not worry.

“active partnering” in which employees and managers disclosed what they wanted to achieve personally and professionally.

Proactive employees who have plans, ask about priorities, and try to head off problems are valuable.