Should We Adopt France's New "Unplug After 6 p.m." Law?

How frequently do you lot cheque your work e-mail?

If you're like me–and a lot of people these days–the reply is too often.

I confess that I check my work email subsequently hours and on the weekend. If I see something coming in that I can respond to at the moment, I practise. And then even if I'one thousand "relaxing," I am working. My mind is always at least half-plugged into my job.

That's why the news coming out of French republic is an interesting topic of word. While the initial headline ("France Outlaws Work Email After half-dozen p.one thousand.") is non quite true, it is still a assuming statement in favor of unplugging and piece of work/life residual.

Should we, in the U.South., follow suit and unplug after the workday is over? Can, and should, we limit the hours nosotros spend working, either at the office or while thumbing through our inbox while waiting at the post role?

Working smarter, not harder

One of the popular reactions to France's move was a figurative roll of the eyes. Some folks were non surprised France did this. As the stereotype goes, French workers spend most of their fourth dimension sipping vino and eating baguettes. That'due south why their productivity, at the individual level every bit well as a country, is so far beneath America's. Right?

Let'southward expect at the facts. The graph below (from Business Insider) shows the boilerplate number of work hours per year for a full-time employee in the U.S. (blue), France (red), and Deutschland (light-green). Deutschland is in in that location because it'south 1 of the United States' fiercest competitor in the race for well-nigh productive industrial country in the world.

Every bit you can see, the United States is currently leading the pack with the boilerplate American worker spending over 1,700 hours at piece of work a year. Meanwhile, French workers spend effectually 1,450, and the German worker spends slightly over 1,400 hours at work a yr.

Detect how the American domination of the "Burning the Midnight Oil" race (they get medals and everything) is recent. A few decades ago, the French were putting in many more hours than their American counterparts, but that has changed with stricter labor laws.

This graph is definitive proof that all those extra hours are making the American economic system the burliest in the country past leaps and bounds, right?

Cool your jets, engine. Not quite.

Look at the GDP per Capita (productivity or output per worker) for the same three countries over the last 30 years.

Gross domestic product per Capita in 1980

US: $12,180

France: $12, 214

Germany: $11,746

Gross domestic product per Capita in 1990

US: $23,038

France: $21,359

Federal republic of germany: $21,584

GDP per Capita in 2011

US: $48,112

France: $42, 379

Germany: $44,021

While Americans spend nearly 20% more of their time at work than the Germans and French, they only take an 8.five% edge over them in productivity.

There are a diversity of reasons for this: how specialized the piece of work in each land is, the average level of teaching, etc. But 1 thing is clear: an increment of piece of work hours does not increase productivity on an arithmetic, much less exponential, calibration. There is a simple reason why: we are talking well-nigh homo beings.

Different machines or software, we can't go along and on without suffering from fatigue or wear. Nosotros add together stress to our bodies and minds throughout the twenty-four hour period. This is called the allostatic load.

Existence plugged in to work (via emails, calls, or having it on your mind) is wear and tear on your entire cocky. Later a sure signal, it starts to affect your productivity. Each extra hr at work has diminishing returns. Fatigue, lack of concentration, and loss of functional retentivity fix in.

Ironically, not working is i of the most important secrets to doing peachy piece of work.

Inquiry shows that taking an e-mail vacation can significantly reduce your stress and increase your concentration.

From a University of California – Irvine study:

"Nosotros found that when you lot remove email from workers' lives, they multitask less and experience less stress."

Taking a work email vacation lets your internal microprocessor cool downwards. You're turning off the hum from the office of your encephalon nonetheless thinking about deadlines and memos. Do this, and the next time you re-engage with work, you'll be fresh and focused, ready to do great work.

Every time you lot work into the wee hours of the dark, sending emails or finishing a project, y'all are risking doing poor work. Your trunk and heed are tired, so mistakes are likelier to happen. If you want to do piece of work y'all'll be proud of, yous have to find means of working smarter, non harder.

Warning: cliff alee

Our brains are amazing. They tin can calculate, visualize, and operate with tremendous ability. Just they have limits. These limits don't just affect your productivity, but your health.

Quite literally, working long hours tin kill you.

A report published in the American Journal of Epidemiology combined numerous studies, and found a simple, irrefutable truth:

"Spending also long in the part resulted in a 40 to 80 pct greater chance of eye disease compared to an eight 60 minutes work mean solar day."

"Doing more 11 hours of piece of work a mean solar day raised center disease risks by 67 percent."

Another study review listed all of the proven links between working long hours and your health:

"[It] shows that long work hours are indeed associated with adverse health, in particular cardiovascular disease, inability retirement, subjectively measured poor wellness, and fatigue."

"The well-nigh interesting studies show that working more than 11 hours a day is associated with a three times higher risk of myocardial infarction and about a four times higher risk of noninsulin-dependent diabetes"

This is no longer just an outcome of whether you want to exercise bang-up work, simply whether y'all want to practise this to your health?

The motility made in French republic is bold. It's potentially revolutionary, and may, hopefully, set the tone for other countries. But it makes you wonder why it had to get to that point. Why did nosotros need something official to limit united states to the 40-hour work week when these nasty facts linking productivity and wellness accept been confirmed time and again for decades?

Mayhap it's custom, or maybe it's naivete. Any it is, there's no practiced excuse to ignore it anymore. Ask yourself this question: practise you want to do very adept work for a long time? If y'all said yeah, then give yourself a suspension and step away from the smartphone.

How do you lot attain work life balance? Tell me in the comments below.

Featured photo credit: Chris Chan via flickr.com

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/work/should-adopt-frances-new-unplug-after-6-law.html