Exhaustion Is Not A Badge Of Honour

Sixty-hour weeks, doing presos on the bus. One. More. Email. Your work devotion is doing more harm than good. Here’s why

- Claudia Canavan

Consider yourself to be a workaholic? Well, my friend, you need to hear the cold, hard truth that comes by way of Arianna Huffington on Instagram: “Not only is [exhaustion] not a badge of honour, it is based on the delusion that being always on and exhausted is the only way to succeed.” Ohhh.

We’re guessing that if you’re not spending multiple evenings in the office with only the cleaners for company, or tapping out tomorrow’s to-do list while nestled between strangers mid-commute, you’ve likely tried to conquer any pre-work dread with a quick inbox check when you wake up.

How can we be so sure? The results of a recent Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work survey estimated Aussies worked an extra 3.2 billion hours of unpaid overtime last year, which is the equivalent of an extra six hours per employee each week. Elsewhere, a Budget Direct survey found that more than half of respondents checked their work email while on holidays. You know you shouldn’t. Yet, out of martyrdom or madness, you do – even though you’ve heard the big news: the World Health Organization has officially classified ‘burnout’ as a legit diagnosis.