The Importance of Disconnecting from Your Work

Some of the happiest, most well adjusted, and most effective people I know are also people who have a profound ability to disconnect from their work. They can disconnect rapidly and put themselves in another state of mind which does not involve work. People who come to mind include Richard Branson, who set records in balloons, captains of industry who leisurely golf their days away, men in bars who slap each others’ backs while drinking martinis and making deals, or CEO’s of companies in their early 60s who run marathons.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself is learn to disconnect from your work.

Many people never do this, or don’t know how. You see these people walking around with telephones in their ears wherever they go, getting up from dinner to talk on the phone, screwing around with their Blackberries at any given moment, and, in general, working every second of the day.

I have a secret for you: The most important and successful people never behave like this. The most important people simply do not work when they are not working.

If you are working all the time, you are not being nearly as productive as you could be. For example, typical German workers, when they are working, are models of efficiency. They are detail-oriented and more focused than the average worker. When they are not working, however, they are truly not working. They are done for the day.

There is a saying: “Work hard, play hard.” I believe this expression exists for a reason. People who work hard and play hard contribute more value when they are working.

Think about the people – and you may be one of them – who inform you of how stressed out they are about work when they are not even working. Think about the people who are glued to their email and Blackberry and cell phone all weekend, no matter where they go. Think about the people who work on their laptop when they are sitting in front of the television with their family at night.

None of this is generally productive.

In fact, behavior that keeps you constantly attached to work is counterproductive. Your body and mind never has time to recharge. You are constantly at the beck and call of a job and you never get a fresh perspective. You never see the world. You just see the job.

I believe this problem is far more serious than people realize. Success should not necessarily be defined by how much you work, how stressed you are, or how dedicated you are to working all the time. Success should instead be defined by your ability to approach each problem you face at work with a fresh perspective, to maintain a cheery disposition, and be an all around happy and well-balanced person. Success should also be defined by your ability to enjoy your life when you are not working.

Your entire existence is not tied to your job. There is a lot going on in the world besides your job and the work you are doing. When you come home at night, or on the weekend, it is not productive to be focused on your job. Your mind should be on something else – your family, the weather, a book, a hobby.

You should be very aware of what goes on inside your head when you think about work. When you are thinking about work, you are thinking about how you can control and manipulate the objects of your work. If you are a writer, you are thinking about what you are writing; if you are a salesman, you are thinking about what you can sell; if you are a cashier, you are thinking about the transaction in front of you. You are focused on the people you are working with and what they are doing. You are focused on your clients. You are focused on how all of this affects you, what it means to your livelihood, and whether it makes you angry, happy, or sad. You are focused on a raise, a demotion, getting fired, getting a new client. Once you truly get into your job, this focus will become more profound and pronounced.

I am sure you have met people whose minds are totally focused on their jobs and the work they are doing. If they are attorneys, for example, they might be overly logical whenever you speak with them. It is important for people like these to go outside the state of mind they are in when working and start focusing on things not work-related (i.e., the external world). The state of mind that goes along with work is needed to do your job. However, in order for you to improve at your job, you need to be in a different state of mind each day when leaving the workplace.

The reason it is so important to disconnect from work is because much of work is an internal, introverted process. When we work, we are fixated on the object of our work. In order to get out of that mindset, we need to focus on objects outside of our work. There are lots of ways to do this, including exercising, socializing, taking a walk, or simply doing anything entirely unrelated to our jobs.

There are lots of clichés about work. There is the man who returns from the office and snaps at his wife. There is the person who throws himself or herself on the couch the second he or she gets home from the office. There is the person who gets home and talks and complains on the phone to someone for hours about a supervisor or a job he or she does not like. There is the aggressive driver on the road who yells at people on the way home from the office.

High school football players apparently get better grades during football season than the average student. A reason for this, I believe, is these players are able to disconnect from their studies and come back with a new perspective after playing. It is important to always have a new perspective on your work. This keeps you moving towards your goal.

Give yourself the luxury of disconnecting from your job. Remember your life is made all the better when you can see the world outside of your job.

To Succeed in Any Job You Need to Create Work

What You Will Learn Work is not something to be detested; instead, it is a path to mental and economic stability and happiness. The most important of all of your career skills is the ability to create productive work. When you create work you always have something to do and you are always adding value. You need to be working for companies and people who are proactive in creating work. Work is healthy and it gives you a purpose in life – cherish the work you do.

To be denied the right to work is to be denied the right to participate in the society in which we live. It is for this reason that having the opportunity to work is probably the most important part of your existence. Work is not something to be detested; instead, it is a path to mental and economic stability, happiness, and purpose in our lives. To be around people who think otherwise is never in your best interest. To associate work with something negative is also never in your best interest. The most important of all of your career skills is the ability to create productive work. The ability to create productive work is something that will change your career for the better, and it can also take you further than you might have ever believed in your chosen path.

Perhaps you know how to create work in your chosen profession and are doing it already. Perhaps you are not creating work in your chosen profession, or you detest work. Regardless of your current attitude towards work, you need to understand how to create work. The people who create work in our society are the ones who are the happiest, the ones who rarely lose their jobs, the ones who make the most money, and the ones who are the most stable in all respects throughout their lives. You need to know how to create work. Creating work is essential to your existence.

As a manager and also as someone who works very hard at my job, one of the most distressing things that I see is people who fail to create work in their jobs, or who look for ways to avoid work. I am a firm believer in the importance of work, not just from the standpoint that work provides us money with which to live, but also because the act of work is how we participate in society.

One of my jobs is managing a legal recruiting firm called BCG Attorney Search. As part of this job, I have had the opportunity to work with numerous recruiters throughout the years. Some of these recruiters have been absolutely exceptional, and others have been quite marginal. It is very easy for me to tell an outstanding legal recruiter from an average one. My conclusions are based on the recruiter’s ability to create work. Regardless of your profession, understanding the key behind this observation and what it means will be of great assistance to you.

A legal recruiter’s job typically involves (1) working with candidates who approach the legal recruiting firm seeking placement and (2) finding new candidates to work with. I have always sat in an office with legal recruiters and have had the pleasure of watching them very closely. Several years ago I remember having a recruiter who would come in at 8 a.m. every day and would generally leave by around 12 to 1 p.m. most days. When I would ask him why he was leaving so early he would generally say something to the effect of “there are no new candidates today.” What he was saying was that he had done all of the work that had been presented to him–no more and no less. My obvious question for him was along the lines of, “Why not go out and look for new candidates?”

There is always plenty of work for anyone in sales to do beyond the tasks that are immediately presented to them. They can call old leads. They can send letters to old clients, trying to reactivate some old accounts. They can call old sales and see how the product is working out. They can look for new sources of sales. They can socialize to meet new potential clients. The list of work you can do to find more work and be good at your job is almost endless.

In my career, I have run across all sorts of people. I have met countless people who I know have jobs making $500,000 a year or more. By simply examining their work ethics, I always know if they will last at this income level over the long-term. The ones who fail my observational test are never on top for long. The only thing I am looking for is whether this person knows how to create work in his or her job. When you create work you always have something to do and you are always adding value.

Work is most often not something that jumps right into our line of sight. In any job you have it is important to realize that someone created the job you are doing. It is up to you to maintain this job, ensuring that this job continues to create value for your employer. You should also take the initiative to add tasks to this job that continue to make it as effective and profitable for your employer as possible.

For example, a secretary’s main job may be to answer the phone. While waiting for the phone to ring, there should also be other jobs that the secretary is working on, to be more productive. The ability to create work will give the secretary more value to her employer, and will gain the secretary more appreciation. Few sane employers would ever let someone like her go.

In my job I have managed hundreds of employees. I have had the opportunity to work with some truly exceptional people. I would estimate that, in terms of people who are truly exceptional and indispensable in good times and in bad, the proportion of exceptional performers to average performers is around one in 10. That is, only one in 10 people are really, truly exceptional performers. The exceptional performers are the people whom employers rely upon and try to hang on to in all economic climates. The poor to average performers are not as important to the organization. In fact, unless a job is extremely well defined and measured, the poor to average performers will in many cases drag the company down to some degree. What I have noticed from all truly stellar performers is that they have the ability to consistently create work that the company values.

These workers tend to appear to have the happiest personal lives and make the most money in their jobs. I have seen this pattern enough times in my career that I really believe there is something to it. These same individuals also typically have the most employment stability. When they come to work at our company they may have been with their previous employer 10 years or more. They always have good references. They are the sorts of people companies and groups want to keep around.

One of the most infuriating things for me as a manager is when I walk around the office and see people screwing around, not really doing any work. As our organization grew several years ago I wanted to ensure that our employees were always working on productive tasks, so I started giving managers weekly tasks to do. I would write these tasks up on a Sunday night and then speak with our managers in a one-on-one meeting each week to gauge the tasks. The meetings tended to follow two sorts of tracks (and generally still do to this day):

One type of manager would come into the meeting, his team having accomplished most of the tasks, and he would be very familiar with the status of each of the tasks. He would be excited to report on his progress, and would be aware of the exact amount of work required to complete each task, and would provide me with an estimated date of completion. This manager might also suggest new tasks in addition to the existing tasks that needed to be done, for the organization’s benefit. In addition, ongoing tasks that were started would always be brought to completion, and never stopped once they were underway. Before ever requesting additional staff, this type of manager would always ensure that their people were fully utilized and were doing their work as efficiently as possible.

The other type of manager would come into the meeting and would have accomplished few of the tasks. He might even be slightly annoyed at having to report on the status of the tasks. He would state that certain tasks had not been completed or started, for reasons that were very trivial–and only served to help him avoid starting the tasks. This manager would go on to complain about his workload, and would request more staff. In subsequent meetings, I would find that tasks that the manager had started had, for some reason, suddenly been abandoned. The manager would never suggest new work that could be done.

While I hate to make the distinction between managers in such a black and white manner, this is something I have seen over and over and over again. It goes without saying that the people I want on my team are the managers who are proactive. You do not need to be a manager to be proactive, however. Everyone needs to be proactive in his or her job in order to create work.

You need to be working for companies and people who are proactive in creating work. Young companies are generally hungrier and know how to create work better than older ones. Companies that are expanding and not contracting generally know how to create work. You need to be creating work inside your organization. I believe that entrepreneurs are the engines of our society, because they are constantly trying to create work and, in the process, they create new jobs.

In the movie About Schmidt, Jack Nicholson plays an actuary in Omaha who retires from his job after a long career. In the movie we see Nicholson go back to the office weeks after retirement in an effort to give the organization some sort of information he had been working on prior to his retirement. He speaks to his replacement in the job he once held, and is politely told that he is no longer needed. Nicholson is crushed and the audience realizes that the fact that he is no longer needed by the company, to him, almost means he is no longer part of society.

People who cannot work in society are the most unhappy and troubled. To work is to be part of society, an active participant. To be prohibited from working is to be cast out by society. There is nothing more crushing to people than being prohibited from working.

After taking vacations most of us are happy to get back to work. Work defines our psyche and our sense of purpose. People with no sense of purpose often go mad.

You need to create work in your job, and to continue to create work. You should also stay away from people in your job who are critical of the act of work. While I believe unions have their place, they can be very dangerous in many respects because their goal is often to protect you from doing too much work. Work is healthy for you and it gives you purpose. If anything, you should have more work rather than less. People who try to give you distaste for work are extremely dangerous because your identity and life, for the most part, revolve around work.

You have a more wonderful and productive life and existence the closer you are to work. The more productive work you create, the better you will do in your job. Cherishing your work and creating more work will change your career and life.

Time Economy Jobs and Productivity Economy Jobs

What You Will Learn There are advantages to being in either a productivity economy or a time economy job. You need to decide which sort of job you want to do – most people are suited to one or the other. Once you have decided on this, do this sort of work.

In a law firm, when an attorney stops billing hours and no longer has any work, the person will be very close to losing his or her job. Survival in law firms involves staying busy and making work all the time. This is one reason it is so hard for young attorneys to stay employed in law firms. They find that they must ingratiate themselves with the right people, in order to consistently get work. Moreover, they have to do excellent quality work. And finally, because law firms typically charge clients by the hour, the attorneys are expected to bill lots of hours because, unless they do, the law firm will not make money. If an attorney stops churning out the hours, he or she will soon be out of a job.

When I was practicing law, I remember a first-year attorney I was working with was quietly asked to leave the firm. However, despite how quiet the firm was about the entire thing, the attorney made a big stink about it, telling everyone who would listen that there was a conspiracy of sorts, regarding why he had been asked to leave the firm.

He had gotten into a giant conflict with two of the more successful partners in the law firm, who had asked him to go and do a bunch of research about a complex legal matter. It was the sort of research that was meant to take days–if not weeks of his time. The research was something that the law firm would be charging the client thousands of dollars for, of course, and the attorney decided that, before going and doing all of this research, he wanted to make sure that the work was necessary at all. The attorney had not received any prior information about the case, so he went and got the case file and started looking through it, studying it.

In the course of reviewing the file, he discovered a technicality: the statute of limitations had run out on the lawsuit, which would definitely be good news for the client. Without more than six weeks of law firm experience at this point, the young attorney was very proud of what he had discovered. I remember that he went to the partners who had assigned him all of the research and said:

“I may be reading this wrong, but it looks like the statute of limitations would bar this lawsuit against our client. This is fantastic. All we need to do is tell the court about this and the case should go away.”

The partners did not share his enthusiasm. In fact, they told him they were aware of this issue, but that he was to go do the research they had assigned him. The statute of limitations was not something he was supposed to be researching, they told him, and they wanted answers on other issues.

The young attorney then went and spoke with some other partners in a “hypothetical” about the situation, and they all agreed with him that the case would be barred by the statute of limitations. He then emailed the attorneys who had assigned him the research and cc’d the partners who had agreed with the statute of limitations issue when he had brought it up as a hypothetical.

The young attorney was taken off the case and ended up getting into a giant argument with the attorneys who had assigned him the work. He accused them of being “unethical” and trying to “run up unnecessary legal bills” for their client, among other things. I do not know exactly what was going on and why he was doing research on a case that sounded like it could easily have been put away by filing a simple motion; however, the young attorney’s inability to cooperate and do the requested work ultimately cost him his job.

After this episode, people simply refused to give the attorney any work. He did not play by the rules. The rules of the job required him to do what he was told, and even to run up legal bills when it was necessary. Within a few months, with nothing to do and no one willing to give him work, the attorney was asked to leave the firm. He was told he was “not productive.”

I am not sure if the attorneys in the law firm were doing anything unethical or not–I tend to believe they were not. What I do know, though, is that they were upset that the attorney was not willing to do the work they assigned him.

One of the most important things for attorneys is always having work on their table and, in fact, “creating work” since their time is valued based on how many hours they put in. Since attorneys charge by the hour, most of them are looking to do as much work as they possibly can. One of the reasons that attorneys are so highly paid, I think, relates to the fact that they are always working, and billing out for as many hours as possible.

Especially in the case of an attorney, if someone is willing to pay, it is important that one consistently looks and is busy at all times. When I was practicing law, I remember that many times I myself was working on research and all sorts of projects that were only tangentially relevant to the case I was involved in. Nevertheless, I was given the work in order to increase billings for the case. As an attorney in this position, the job could be viewed as simply showing up and doing meaningless work.

Much like an attorney, if you are a barber who gets paid directly by customers, you can only make a lot of money if you cut a lot of hair. Similarly, a doctor only earns a lot if he or she sees a high volume of patients. There are typically two types of jobs:

• Time Economy Jobs. The first job is one you report to, and you generally get paid for, regardless of your productivity. Many office jobs inside corporations and the government are like this, for example. People report to work each day and, for the most part, have a deal that if they are there a certain number of hours and produce at a certain standard they will be paid. These sorts of jobs are called “the time economy”.
• Productivity Economy Jobs. The second type of job is one in which you exchange a task for a certain amount of money. A doctor, for example, may be paid based on the number of procedures that they have done. Someone who cuts hair may get paid based on the number of haircuts they have given. People who do these jobs typically only make a good amount of money and increasing amounts of money when they are able to be very productive with their various tasks. These sorts of jobs are termed “the productivity economy”.

Your ability to succeed in a job will generally be based on your ability to deliver in the sort of environment you are working in.

Success in time economy jobs is generally based on your ability to

• (1) look busy and deliver the amount of productivity expected of you,
• (2) show up at work on time, and
• (3) be effective at impressing superiors.

The more productivity you deliver and the more effective you are at impressing superiors, the more likely it is that you will be successful in your job. These are skills that not all people have, and if you have these sorts of skills, then you will do best in a time economy job.

In the case of the attorney who lost his job for not doing seemingly needless work, he was failing to deliver the amount of productivity expected of him, and he also failed to impress his superiors. A certain amount of productivity is expected in every job. You need to find out what is expected in your job, and to make sure that you deliver. The better you deliver, the better off you will be in your career.

In contrast, success in productivity economy jobs is generally based on

• (1) doing as much work as possible,
• (2) doing as much work as possible in the minimum amount of time, and
• (3) doing high quality work.

The more you can get done and the more productive you are, the better you will typically do in productivity economy jobs. If you have a productivity economy job, you can have horrible interpersonal skills and still do very well, as long as you are productive and your work is of high quality.

I read recently that the average office worker who goes to work each day ultimately ends up accomplishing no more than 60 to 90 minutes worth of work. Instead of working, the person is doing numerous things like the following:

• talking on the phone,
• day-dreaming,
• getting involved in conversations at work that are not relevant to the task at hand,
• gossiping,
• thinking about working,
• screwing around on the Internet,
• walking around the office,
• planning lunch,
• thinking about working some more,
• going to lunch,
• talking about lunch and more.

In fact, at the end of an average day it is unlikely that most people have ended up completing more than 90 minutes worth of work. The lack of work being done is far more common in time economy jobs than it is in productivity economy jobs. I believe that there are numerous dangers in time economy jobs because for many people doing these sorts of jobs the objective becomes to do as little as possible and still get paid. People in time economy jobs are at the greatest danger of being laid off because it generally and eventually becomes understood by higher ups that there are numerous people inside of the company that are simply not adding value.

If you are in a time economy job where this is the case, you should be doing something else. The key to succeeding in a time economy job is to play by the rules and be involved in something that is meaningful to you, and that you enjoy. If you are doing something you enjoy, your productivity tends to be higher. In contrast, in a productivity economy job you will be paid based on the amount of work that you do and, in most cases, for the results of that work.

In everyone’s career, they need to decide which sort of job they want to do. There are advantages to being in either a productivity economy or a time economy job. I have found that most people are suited to one or the other. You need to decide which one makes you most comfortable, and once you have decided on this, do this sort of work.

Move Towards the Light

What You Will Learn Life is a struggle between bringing the light or the darkness into life. The best moments in life are when you allow the light to overcome you. Everything happening is an expression of darkness or light, the positive or negative. Always do everything within your power to move towards the light–and never away from it.

There is a story I heard some time ago about a man named Rabbi Akiva, who lived in Palestine. He was considered an extremely good person and also a sage. He became the greatest scholar of his time (he lived in the second century) by his consistency. He attended school later in life, at age 40, and it was at this same age of 40 that he became a ba’al teshuba (a Jew who returned to traditional Judiasm). Prior to that time, it is said he actually hated the Jewish sages.

Following the Bar Kochba rebellion against the Romans, the then rulers of Palestine, in about 82 A.D., it was ordered that Rabbi Akiva be executed publicly. When the day for Akiva’s execution came, all of his students were in shock that such a great man could be executed. They could not believe that such a good man could be unfairly and wrongly executed. However, the Rabbi did not care who was responsible for the injustice against him, and he was very calm and content. He was not concerned with blaming anyone else for what had happened to him, and chose not to be angry, fearful, or sad. He was being executed because he had violated the Roman decree of not teaching Torah in public. He had been warned, but had disobeyed, because in his opinion Jews without Torah are like fish out of water-they will soon die. Several other sages had been executed for exactly the same reason prior to Rabbi Akiva’s execution.

What is so powerful about this portion of the story is that most of us in this sort of situation would be concerned about being a victim. Most of us are always looking for one reason or another to label ourselves a victim. Someone else is responsible for an injustice against us or whatever else may have happened to us. It seems we have never possibly brought misfortune upon ourselves. Even those of us who have done something wrong never feel as if punishment is deserved. A great many people out there spend their entire lives blaming others for the circumstances that they face.

As Rabbi Akiva was being executed, the students standing near him were very upset about the tragedy and injustice occurring before their eyes. They asked him how he could appear so serene while he was about to be burned to death. He answered them that it was because he previously wasn’t sure if he would ever have had the chance to do a Kiddish Hashem (public sanctification of God’s name) before he died, and now he had that opportunity-by saying the Shema (a common Jewish prayer) as he was dying. In reality this would be the best moment of his life on earth.

When I first heard this story I wondered to myself how this particular episode could be the best moment in his life. How could a man about to be executed for a crime, which should have never been classified as a crime in the first place, believe that what was about to happen to him was going to be the best moment in his life? What good can possibly come out of accusing and killing an innocent man?

The reason that I believe Rabbi Akiva approached this the way he did was because he had been given the opportunity to come face to face with evil. He chose to see the worst thing that could possibly happen to him as an opportunity to confront and to rise above evil. He chose to see this act against him as a service to God, and an opportunity to resist becoming angry, blameful and negative. Instead, he confronted his execution with calmness and conviction, choosing to be a force for good in the world.

One of the most negative things we can do is leave our minds open to others’ negative influences. When most of us come face to face with negative influences, thoughts and ideas, we too turn negative. There is a lot of noise out there in the world, and most people in the world become one with this noise instead of resisting it. For example, in facing an unjust execution, most ordinary men would be led kicking and screaming to their death. Here however, Rabbi Akiva faced his execution with calmness and conviction, despite being wrongfully sentenced to death.

Life is about dealing with positively and negatively charged poles–light and darkness. Every situation and every emotion has its opposite, just as life itself has its opposite. We are continually facing either positive people and circumstances, or negative people and circumstances. We are facing the opportunity to move to the side of negativity, or the opportunity move to the side of positivity. Life is a struggle between bringing the light into our lives and bringing the darkness into our lives.

• When we see a child smile at us, it brings light into our lives.
• When we meet someone and have a connection with him or her, it brings light into our lives.
• When we get our dream job, it brings light into our lives.
• When we get a promotion, or a raise, it brings light into our lives.

The best moments in our lives are when we allow the light to overcome us, and the worst moments are when we allow the darkness to overcome us. Darkness is represented by many things:

• When someone attacks us, or accuses us unjustly of something, it brings darkness into our lives.
• When we are in a situation wherein we and/or others are gossiping negatively about someone, it brings darkness into our lives.
• When we cheat, lie, or steal, it brings darkness into our lives.
• When we try to hurt others, it brings darkness into our lives.

The way you think on a day-to-day basis, the people you associate with, the places you go, the things you do, what you read, what you watch on television and the things you say are all an expression of either darkness or light, the positive or negative.

What does any of this have to do with your career and life? I believe that what I have described above is among the most powerful of lessons that you can ever learn. When you are overcome by the light, the light cannot help but be part of who you are, a part of your entire world. The more time you spend around the light and what is positive, the more your life is likely to be positive as well. If you spent all of your time hanging around drug dealers it would probably be very difficult for you to remain part of the light. Similarly, if you spent all of your time hanging out in a bar in a bad neighborhood with a bunch of drunks and strippers, it would also be very difficult for you to remain part of the light.

The light is everything that is positive and good in the world. The power of the light is something that transforms all those who are around it. You should do everything within your power to remain connected to the light. The more you are around the light, the more you become like the light. Your goal should be to become like the light and maintain contact with what is good, positive, happy, spiritual and uplifting. Similarly, at the same time you should be doing everything within your power to avoid darkness.

• You can move towards the light by–rather than looking for what is wrong, looking for what is right about your life and the people in it.
• You can move toward the light by–rather than trying to get revenge, offering forgiveness.
• You can move towards the light by-rather than worrying, taking charge of your situation.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than fearing something, becoming courageous.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than associating with bad people, associating with good people.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than raising your voice and getting angry, approaching the situation calmly and in a friendly manner.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than talking badly about others, refusing to participate in such discussions.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than complaining about your life and the people in it, appreciating all of it.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than doing something destructive, doing something constructive.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than not working and being productive, working and being productive.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than being a victim, deciding to be the one in control.
• You can move towards the light by–rather than taking from others, giving to others.

The best piece of career advice I can give you is to always do everything within your power to move towards the light–and never away from it. The more you truly live going towards the light, the happier, more fulfilled and better off you will be. The more you are going away from the light, the more pain and suffering you will encounter in your life.

The Importance of Disconnecting from Your Work

What You Will Learn Do not work when you are not working. Put yourself in another state if mind. Disconnecting from work rejuvenates you and makes you more efficient, detail-oriented, and focused than an average worker. You become more productive when you disconnect from work.

Some of the happiest, most well-adjusted, and most effective people I know are also people who have a profound ability to disconnect from their work.

They can disconnect rapidly and put themselves in another state of mind that does not involve work. Some images that come to mind are people like Richard Branson setting records in balloons, golfers who are captains of industry leisurely golfing their days away, men in bars slapping each others’ backs while drinking martinis and making deals, or CEO’s of companies in their early 60’s running marathons.

One of the most important things you can do for yourself and your life is to disconnect from your work.

Many people never disconnect from their work or do not even know how to disconnect. You can see these people walking around with telephones in their ears wherever they go, getting up from dinner to talk on the phone, screwing around with their Blackberries at any given moment and, in general, working every second of the day.

I have a secret for you: The most important people never behave like this. The most important people simply do not work when they are not working.

If you are working all the time, you are not being nearly as productive as you could be. For example, typical German workers, when they are working, are models of efficiency. When they are not working, however, they are not working. They stop work and they are done. When they are working, they are typically being more efficient, more detail-oriented, and more focused than the average worker.

There is a saying-work hard and play hard-that I believe exists for a reason: people who work hard and play hard are better all around workers and contribute more value when they are working.

Think about the people (you may be one of them) who inform you of how “stressed out” they are about work when they are not even working. Think about the people who are glued to their email and Blackberry and cell phone all weekend, everywhere they go. Think about the people who work on their laptop when they are sitting in front of the television with their family at night.

None of this is generally productive.

In fact, behavior which keeps you constantly attached to work is counterproductive. Your body never has time to recharge. Your mind never has time to recharge. You are constantly at the beck and call of a job and never get perspective.

You never see the world, you just see the job.

I believe that this problem is far more serious than people realize. Success should not necessarily be defined by how much you work, how stressed you are, or how dedicated you are to working all the time. Success should, instead, be defined by your ability to approach each problem you face at work with a “fresh” perspective, to maintain a cheery disposition, and be an all around happy and well-balanced person. Success should also be defined by your ability to enjoy your life when you are not working.

You should not think that your entire existence is tied to your job. There is a lot going on in the world besides your job and the work you are doing. When you come home at night, it is not productive to be focused on your job. Your mind should be somewhere else-on your family, on the weather, on a book, or on a hobby. When you are away from work on the weekends, you should not be focused on your job.

You should be very aware of what goes on inside of your head when you think about work. When you are thinking about work, you are thinking about how you can control and manipulate the objects of your work. If you are a writer, you are thinking about what you are writing; if you are a salesman, you are thinking about what you can sell; if you are a cashier, you are thinking about the transaction in front of you.

You are focused on the people you are working with and what they are doing. You are focused on your clients. You are focused on how all of this affects you, what it means to your livelihood, and whether it makes you angry, happy, or sad. You are focused on a raise, a demotion, getting fired, getting a new client. Once you truly get into your job, this focus will get more and more profound and pronounced.

I am sure you have met people whose minds are totally focused on their jobs and the work they are doing. If they are attorneys, for example, they may be overly logical when you speak with them. It is important for people like these to get outside of the state of mind they are in when they are working and start focusing on items that are not work related (i.e., the external). The state of mind that goes along with work is needed to do the work you are doing.  However, in order for you to be even better at your job, you need to be in another state of mind as well.

The reason it is so important to disconnect from work, in my opinion, is because much of work is an internal, introverted process. When we work, we are fixated on the object of our work. In order to get out of the work mindset, we need to focus on objects outside of our work. There are lots of ways to fixate ourselves on objects outside of our work. These include exercising, socializing, taking a walk, or simply doing something entirely unrelated to our jobs.

There are lots of clichés about work. There is the man who returns from the office and snaps at his wife. There is the person who throws him or herself on the couch the second he or she gets home from the office. There is the person who gets home and talks and complains on the phone to someone for hours about a supervisor or a job he or she does not like. There is the aggressive driver on the road who yells at people on the way home from the office.

High school football players apparently get better grades during football season than the average student. A reason for this, I believe, is that these high school football players are able to disconnect from their studies and come back with a new perspective after playing. It is important to always have a new perspective on your work and to ensure that you never have the same perspective twice.

Give yourself the luxury of disconnecting from your job. Remember that your life is made all the better when you can see the world around you outside of your job.