Something You Should Know - SYSK Choice: Your $100 Startup & Why Overworking Doesn’t Work

Episode Date: January 25, 2020

Every credit card bill comes with a due date. And if you pay the balance every month by the due date – you don’t pay any interest. But if you carry a balance month-to-month, the rules are different. You pay interest every day on the unpaid balance. So, the question is, if you make your payment earlier than the due date, do you save money? We start this episode by doing that math. http://www.bankrate.com/finance/credit-cards/pay-credit-card-bill-early-and-save-1.aspx Starting your own business is a romantic idea. But is it practical? Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup (http://amzn.to/2rc9dv4) shares the results of his fascinating research on people who started a successful business with very little money – and explains how anyone can do it. There is one particular app that is sucking your smartphone dry. And by that I mean it is sucking a lot of battery power and storage space. Which app is it? I’ll reveal which one and explain how you can easily live without it. http://mashable.com/2016/02/08/delete-facebook-app-iphone-battery/#OStOxq1kk8qi If you are one of those people (or you know one of those people) who works all the time and never takes a vacation or takes weekends off, you need to hear award-winning journalist Katrina Onstad, author of The Weekend Effect (http://amzn.to/2qPxRRl). She explores the harm this “all work – no fun” approach to life does to a person’s mental and physical health as well as to the quality of work they do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a listener to Something You Should Know, I can only assume that you are someone who likes to learn about new and interesting things and bring more knowledge to work for you in your everyday life. I mean, that's kind of what Something You Should Know was all about. And so I want to invite you to listen to another podcast called TED Talks Daily. Now, you know about TED Talks, right? Many of the guests on Something You Should Know have done TED Talks. Well, you see, TED Talks Daily is a podcast that brings you a new TED Talk every weekday in less than 15 minutes. Join host Elise Hu.

She goes beyond the headlines so you can hear about the big ideas shaping our future. Learn about things like sustainable fashion, embracing your entrepreneurial spirit, the future of robotics, and so much more. Like I said, if you like this podcast, Something You Should Know, I'm pretty sure you're going to like TED Talks Daily. And you get TED Talks Daily wherever you get your podcasts. Today on Something You Should Know, if you carry a balance on your credit cards, do you save money by making your minimum payment early in the month? We'll do the math. Also, can you start a business, be a success quickly, and do it for $100? A lot of

people do. That's why the $100 startup model is all about encouraging people to start quickly. It's encouraging them to start with the money you have, start with the skills that you have, and here's a plan to get started within 30 days. Then there's an easy way to save a lot of battery power on your smartphone by eliminating just one app. Which one is it? And if you're working too much, you have to stop. After about 40 hours of work per week, workers will begin to make errors. There's palpable erosion in the quality of the work that they put out there. And then after 50 hours, it's a precipitous drop. It's like a cliff.

All this today on Something You Should Know. People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world, looking to hear new ideas and perspectives. So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech, politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more. A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool.

And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars. Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. Being curious, you're probably just the type of person Intelligence Squared is meant for. Check out Intelligence Squared wherever you get your podcasts. Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. One of the best things about doing this podcast, the emails. The emails I get are amazing.

I think it has to do with the fact that podcasting is such an intimate medium. I mean, really, it's just you and me. And we talk, and so people feel free to write to me, and I just love it. And I recently got an email just the other day from Sarah, who is a physician's assistant who was talking about the last episode with Dr. Andrew Weil about prescribing antibiotics when they're not really needed. I won't go into all the details, but the email was so heartfelt and so well-written, and I love getting emails.

And if you have a question or a comment or a suggestion, believe me, I read every single email. I respond to every single one. And you can always get me at mike at somethingyoushouldknow.net. First up today, credit cards. If you carry a balance on your credit cards, I bet you've wondered from time to time, if you pay the payment early, will you actually save money? In other words, if you pay the payment before the due date, does that help you in any way? And the answer is yes.

It's not a big yes, but it's a yes. But it can add up. And here's an example from Bankrate.com. Let's imagine that you're a cardholder with an 18% annual percentage rate and a $10,000 balance on your credit card. And let's say your minimum monthly payment is 3.5% of the balance, or $350. So, if the cardholder, you, pays on the last day of the billing cycle, in other words, when the payment is due, the finance charge for the period will total $152

on an average daily balance of $9,989. However, and this will all make sense in a second, however, if the same cardholder, you, pays on day two instead of the last day that the bill is due, if you pay on day two, long before the bill even shows up in the mail, the average daily balance falls to $9,661. So you're paying on a smaller balance. And what will that save you in finance charges?

Well, in this case, about $60 a year. So yeah, it's not a lot, but it can add up. You see, credit card holders who carry a balance from month to month don't get a grace period, like the people who pay their balance off every month. The credit card company charges interest every day of the month until the bill is paid. In addition, the interest compounds. For example, on the second day of the billing cycle, a cardholder pays interest not only on the outstanding balance, but also on the interest charged the day before. So every early payment you make saves a little money.

And that is something you should know. More and more people are starting their own business. First of all, it's a lot easier than it used to be to start a business, and it's a lot less expensive. And in some ways, it's actually less risky than working in a salary job, which, you know, could be gone tomorrow. But aside from the practical reasons of starting a business, there's also that romantic notion of being that entrepreneur,

where you're your own boss, you set your own hours, you do what you like, and you make a good living. So should you start a business? Well, I want you to meet Chris Guillebeau. Chris is one of those people who has never actually had a traditional job working for someone else. And a few years ago, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses that earn $50,000 a year or more from a very modest investment, in many cases, $100 or less. The results of his research into these people is his best-selling book called The $100 Startup. Welcome, Chris. Let's start with this idea that great entrepreneurs are great because they have followed their passion.

In an earlier episode of this podcast, I discussed the pitfalls of following the follow-your-passion advice. So what do you think? Do you think that to be a successful entrepreneur must you follow your passion? Well you know, follow your passion is probably one of the most overrated phrases, you know, online or offline these days, but I do think a lot of successful entrepreneurs do follow their passion. I think what they do though is they don't just follow any particular passion, they follow a passion that is also useful or interesting. I think I agree with you that that word or that phrase is overused, because, you know, I doubt the successful brake shop owner lies in bed at night

passionate about, you know, brake linings. You know, I don't think he has a passion for that, but he's a successful businessman. Yes, I know. That's totally fair. I mean, I guess I would say maybe that successful brakes shop owner, hopefully, perhaps he's not passionate about brakes per se, but maybe he is passionate about community, about the value that he provides his customers, his clients, maybe, and the employees that he works with. So hopefully there's at least some love there.

I guess I'm mostly interested in working with people who, for the most part, enjoy what they do. One of the things that certainly stops people, and I've heard statistics about how, you know, there's a lot more people who think they'd like to start a business than ever do, that what stops them is they think it's too risky or they don't have the money or what if I fail or, you know, all the things that I'm sure you've heard, to which you reply what? It depends on the question. I guess if someone feels like it's too risky, then I would say, well, what really is risky? These days you can start a business without spending a lot of money,

without a lot of lead time or prep time. So I'm not sure that's really risky, at least compared to competing in the traditional job market. As to not knowing what to do, that is a real problem. A lot of people are motivated to start a business, but they don't know what the next steps are. So at least my hope is with the $100 startup to provide a very specific resource that has lots of next steps and checklists and examples to help those people. Do you think that if you ask someone who says, yes, I'd love to start a business, I'd love to be

my own boss, that if they don't really have a pretty good idea of what they want to do, other than just start a business, but they don't have an idea of what kind of business, that they're probably not a good candidate to be an entrepreneur? That's a good question. I don't know that everyone necessarily wants to be an entrepreneur or be their own boss. I guess a lot of the people that we talked with for the study, their primary motivation was freedom, and they wanted to do more of what they loved, whether that was, you know, through full-time business or just through a side project.

And most of them did not really have a strategic plan in the beginning. Most of them didn't necessarily know how everything was going to unfold, but they did kind of, you know, put something forward and then adopt and tweak as they went along. So I'm not sure that everyone wants to be a full-time entrepreneur, but I do think most people want more freedom. And that's very appealing. But I think when people start talking about that, they get wrapped up in this idea of having your own business means huge riches, and perhaps, you know, after a while you don't have to do anything that the business runs itself or other people run it, that this is the path to riches, wealth, and fame.

Right. And maybe for some people it is. I guess for most of the people that we talked with in the study, you know, there were 1,500 people. Most of them weren't necessarily trying to opt out of the world of work entirely. Most of them wanted to do something that was meaningful. So actually, most of them, you know, enjoyed what they did. And maybe they worked, you know, less hours than they did in a previous job, but their whole goal wasn't necessarily to escape work. It was to do something that they found meaningful and that helped people. So you looked at these 1,500 people. So what are the takeaways from that? What is it these people have in common?

What is it you learned? I think that one of the characteristics that people shared, and we talked to people from all over the world operating different kinds of businesses, people from all ages and backgrounds. I would say one of the characteristics was curiosity. And almost everyone that we talked to was somewhat curious, and they asked a lot of questions. And that's how they kind of stumbled into their business model was often by asking questions and seeking to, you know, profit where other people have kind of overlooked something. Another characteristic maybe was just the willingness

to take action and the willingness to get started rather than remaining in paralysis. As you mentioned, a lot of people have business ideas, just like a lot of people want to write a book or a lot of people want to travel, but it's only a minority of those people that kind of follow through. So even just the following through and getting started and seeing, you know, what could possibly come out of it, I would say that was probably an important characteristic. And are you finding now or in your research anyway that people are more inclined to start online-type businesses

as opposed to, you know, the brake shop, the dry cleaner? Yeah, sure. I would say that there's all kinds of models, and we've talked to plenty of people who have started retail businesses and offline businesses, but I do think it is somewhat easier to start an online business, or even if it's an offline business, using online media to attract customers and clients. And I do feel like the cost is much lower, the access to an existing marketplace is there. And also these days, more and more people are becoming comfortable with online shopping. And it used to be kind of a niche thing, but now almost all of us, you know,

are comfortable, you know, going online and purchasing something. And when the conversation turns to online businesses, then people start talking about those online businesses that get hyped a lot on the Internet about, you know, make money while you sleep, you don't really have to do anything. You know, here it's a prepackaged business in a box. You push the button, pay me $100, and off you go. Right, yes, and that's not

at all what we're talking about with the $100 startup model. We're talking about actually, you know, creating a real business, something that really does, you know, deliver value to the world. And people did that, as I said, in different ways, but it was not like a package deal. I mean, they usually started with something that they were skilled in, and they found a way to offer that skill or that knowledge, that expertise, you know, to a group of people who are willing to pay for it. So it is just like a, you know, walking into the break shop, except, you know, it's doing it online. What's the advice, let's take a photographer, for example, somebody who's been, as a hobby, taking lots of pictures, and people say they're really good, and he's thinking he wants to start

a photography business, because he likes taking pictures, not necessarily because he likes getting customers. So, you know, he's good at what he does, but if you don't have any customers, you don't have a business. Correct, yes. And I don't think he necessarily has to learn all about the administrative aspects of running a business, but I guess part of running a business is, you know, enjoying the interaction with customers, with people. So there was a story in the book about a guy who was a photographer, and he had his prints online for a long time, but he never actually had a means of getting paid for them. He didn't actually have, like, a PayPal button.

And so one day he just kind of decided at an experiment to put that up. And he talked about, you know, he put that button up, and then a couple days later, someone came and bought his first $50 print. And he just talked about how empowering that was. He said, it wasn't just the $50. It was the fact that I had made this sale. Someone came to my website and gave me money for something I had made, and that kind of encouraged him to go on. I would say the sooner that this photographer, in your example, adds a method of payment and puts something out there,

then the sooner they'll become more comfortable with, you know, interacting with customers. And it's really a great thing. It's an encouraging thing. That is pretty empowering when you actually get, you may not be making a lot of money, but when you get some money, all of a sudden, you kind of, you know, colors get brighter and the sky is bluer. Right. That's totally true. And then you realize what's possible. You know, we talked with Sarah Young, who owns this yarn store in Portland, and Sarah talked about the first time her store did a $1,000 day, and she called her dad on the phone, and she was just so excited and so empowered. And so that's why the $100 Startup Model is all about encouraging people to start quickly. You know, it's encouraging them to start with the money you have.

Don't spend a lot of money. Don't borrow money. Start with the skills that you have. And, you know, here's a plan to get started within 30 days. And then you can see what happens after that. But don't wait. I'm speaking with Chris Guillebeau, and he is author of the book,

a big best-selling book from a couple years ago called The $100 Startup. Hi, I'm Jennifer, a founder of the Go Kid Go Network. At Go Kid Go, putting kids first is at the heart of every show that we produce. That's why we're so excited to introduce a brand new show to our network called The Search for the Silver Lining, a fantasy adventure series about a spirited young girl named Isla who time travels to the mythical land of Camelot. Look for The Search for the Silver Lining on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast.

And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show. Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest. Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most. Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness on this issue.

It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.

Apple named the Jordan Harbinger show one of the best podcasts a few years back, and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker. Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast. The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. So, Chris, the model that you're talking about, the model of starting a business, is so different than the one that I think many people think of,

kind of the business school model of starting a business where you have an idea, you write a big business plan, you go get venture capital, all that. This pretty much makes that obsolete, at least for the solo entrepreneur. No, I agree. And I think also when people think about startups, sometimes people are thinking about raising capital and angel investors and all these kind of things. But everyone that we talked with for the $100 startup, none of them had done anything like that.

They just kind of went and got started. They didn't write that 60-page business plan that you mentioned. They didn't put together investment proposals because they didn't need to. And in many cases, they actually didn't write that 60-page business plan that you mentioned. They didn't put together investment proposals because they didn't need to. And in many cases, they actually didn't want that. In many cases, as the business got more successful, they actually had offers for investment. And often they turned them down because they deliberately chose to remain small. How many of the people that you studied ended up with a business that was different than the one they thought they were getting into in the beginning? Oh, that's a great question. I'm not sure in terms of a

percentage. I would say that almost everyone kind of adjusted as they went along. Almost everyone was surprised at the response they had and were maybe sometimes surprised that one product or one offering was more successful than another. And a lot of people made tweaks and adjustments. So I don't know, like, how many had a completely different business. But I would say pretty much everyone was kind of, you know, responsive to, you know, how their initial customers and clients engaged with things. I think that's also kind of a characteristic of success, you know, the willingness to adapt. And I also, and I've heard this some, I don't remember who told this story,

but something called the corridor effect, that when you start a business and you start walking down that corridor, doors on either side of you start to open up and things start to happen to you and your business that you would have never imagined. Did you find that? We did. And we also found this principle that for almost everyone that we talked to, it was much easier to kind of ramp up the business. Once the business was doing something, once it had those $50 print sales or even making $1,000 or $2,000 a month, it was pretty easy to go to making $5,000 a month or maybe even $10,000.

So it was much easier actually to ramp up an existing business, even if it was very small, than it was to start the business in the first place. And so that usually happens because of that corridor effect, because they can see other opportunities for revenue. If they have a product, they realize maybe some people want to teach them. If some people want to learn how to use that product, they offer a service or vice versa. And that's also an exciting thing, because then you have more opportunities and more room for growth. Because there are so many of those people, I mean, I can think of some right off the top of my head, who have business ideas and maybe, you know, put their toe in the water.

But they never do anything. And I always wonder if maybe the business is better as a fantasy than a reality, and they're really afraid of, you know, what will happen if they fail, and they can't have that dream that this will make a billion dollars one day because when it's exposed to the light of day, it may suck. And then what are they going to dream about at night? Right. No, that's fascinating. I guess my only response would be most people don't actually want a billion dollars.

Most people wouldn't know what to do with a billion dollars, but I talked with lots of people who are making $100,000 or $200,000 a year from their projects, and they're absolutely thrilled. Even some people are making less than that. But if you have a side project, which a lot of people did, that makes $50,000 a year or more, that's fantastic, and that gives you great security, even if you don't leave your job. You know, it gives you great security to have this thing on the side that's, you know, available to you in case something does happen with your day job. And the people that you studied and talked to, I mean, what kinds of dollars are we talking about?

Were these people that were just making $50,000, or were these people hoping and getting to half a million, five million kind of dollars a year? Yeah, well, we had $50,000 a year as the baseline. And that's just because that's the average U.S. income. I didn't want to only look at hobbies. I wanted to look at actual, you know, projects that were making money. Most of them did, in fact, do more than that. We had lots of, you know, $100,000, $200,000, multiple six-figure businesses, and then a few million-dollar businesses as well. But again, I would say most of the people were motivated primarily by freedom.

They weren't necessarily trying to build multi-million-dollar businesses. They were just trying to make a good living doing something that they loved so that they could have more time with their families, more time to do things that they enjoyed. And the people who were making $50,000, $60,000 a year from this, was that their sole source of income, or did they still work for somebody else too? It depends. It depends on where they're located. Obviously, if you're in California, then $50,000 a year is not a great income. But if you're in India, then it is. There was actually one guy in India who made $200,000 a year. So he was, you know, 200K, and I was impressed with that

because that's a great income, you know, in most of the United States, and certainly it is in India. So some of them were doing it on the side. Some of them were, you know, had just started and then got to that $50,000 to $100,000 level and were planning to ramp up. And others, you know, maybe they were parents or caregivers or something, and, you know, $50,000 on the side was great. And how many of these people that you talked to had previous experience of

either starting a successful or even an unsuccessful business before this one really took hold? I would say very few. You know out of 1500 of course we had some examples of serial entrepreneurs. There were a couple people who were just, you know, determined to go it alone no matter what. And, you know, they would do anything they could to be an entrepreneur. But probably the vast majority were people who just had regular jobs and then kind of stumbled into this. You know, they started a course and they thought no one would sign up. And then, you know, 100 people signed up, and then 1,000 people signed up, or they got laid off from a job and were unable to find another job just because of a difficult recession.

And so they ended up creating their business out of that. So I would say the vast majority of them didn't have any business background. They just, you know, they had some kind of skill, and then they found a way to, you know, make that useful. And any regrets? Any people who said, you know, this isn't really what I thought it would be? Or I guess those people wouldn't really sign up for your study? Well, you know, we heard from people

who had made different transitions. And there was a story of someone who had gone full-time into entrepreneurship. And then she realized she actually valued the collaborative aspect of some of the design work she had done before. So she went back to the studio, but she went back part-time and she talked about how that was a good fit for her because she still had the business on the side,

but she had the part-time work, you know, at the studio. And she said, you know, I have the part-time job, but I feel like I'm, you know, full-time responsible for myself because now I'm just a contractor there, not an employee. So some people have made different decisions about that, but I don't think anyone really like regretted, you know, going down this path of pursuing freedom. And lastly, talk to the idea that I think one thing that stops people is they think it either has to be a new idea because, you know, there already are 16 photographers in town. The last thing we need is another one. Or they think that, you know, maybe already are 16 photographers in town. The last thing we need is another one. Or they think that, you know, maybe I'm just not as good as they are.

Or, you know, there's kind of that self-doubt that always kind of pecks at you in the beginning that maybe you're really doing something kind of foolish here. Right. No, I'm glad you asked that. I would say the first thing is, you know, if there are other people doing something similar to what you envision, that's often a good sign. You know, there's not a ton of original ideas, you know, out there, especially if you're a photographer or whatever the example is, you know, people are still doing that. It's actually a good sign that there is market demand. It's a good sign that there's something that people are willing to pay for. You know, and at the same time, what you offer

is probably going to be somewhat different. And you're going to have your own pitch, your own messaging. You know, if it's a personality-based business, like a lot of these were, then you're going to have your own personality. You'll attract your own customers, your own clients. So I tend to focus much more on the zero-sum game of competition. And I don't necessarily think that, at least for a lot of businesses that we talked with, competition was not a huge deal for them. They were much more concerned with the competition against themselves and just kind of bettering themselves and bettering their own business. What's so exciting about what you're saying is that anybody can start a business. I mean, it doesn't take it like it used to. You don't have to have an office in an office

building and have all that infrastructure. You can have a business in your home and it can really make money. And it's so exciting that anybody really can do this. Chris Guillebeau has been my guest. The name of his book is The $100 Startup, and you can find a link to that book in the show notes. Thank you, Chris. Do you love Disney? Then you are going to love our hit podcast, Disney Countdown. I'm Megan, the Magical Millennial. And I'm the Dapper Danielle. On every episode of our fun and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney.

There is nothing we don't cover. We are famous for rabbit holes, Disney-themed games, and fun facts you didn't know you needed, but you definitely need in your life. So if you're looking for a healthy dose of Disney magic, check out Disney Countdown wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, join me, Megan Rinks. And me, Melissa Demonts for Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong? Each week, we deliver four fun-filled shows.

In Don't Blame Me, we tackle our listeners' dilemmas with hilariously honest advice. Then we have But Am I Wrong?, which is for the listeners that didn't take our advice. Plus, we share our hot takes on current events. Then tune in to see you next Tuesday for our Lister poll results from But Am I Wrong. And finally, wrap up your week with Fisting Friday,

where we catch up and talk all things pop culture. Listen to Don't Blame Me, But Am I Wrong on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. Some of us work a lot. I mean a whole lot more than 40 hours a week, sometimes a lot more than 40 hours a week. And much of that work is done on the weekends. By now you've probably heard that

working too much has negative consequences. It can have negative consequences on you and your health. It can have negative consequences on the work. Katrina Onstatt is an award-winning journalist who has taken a hard look at this all-work- no-play attitude that many people seem to have to see what's really going on and what the real consequences are. Welcome, Christina. And so why do you think this is important? So what if some people want to work all the time? Well, I think, and I think we know, that many of us are very burnt out and our weekends

are not as satisfying as we would like them to be, or maybe as we remember them in a nostalgic way from our childhood. So I wanted to set out to investigate what happened to the weekend. Why is it that so many of us suffer from what's actually called the Sunday night blues, that sensation that the weekend was not rejuvenating in any way. So I wanted to look at our relationship between work and leisure and figure out what went wrong and what we can do better. So what went wrong? What happened at the weekend? Yeah, well, a lot of things have conspired to take our weekends away from us.

Probably the biggest piece is technology, obviously. It used to be that we would leave our workplaces on Friday at 5, and that was it. We were off. We were truly disconnected. Now, many people carry their offices on their bodies and their phones. And even if you're not constantly interacting with work, although many people are, we're working more on weekends than we used to be demographically. But even if you're not actually doing the work, you're kind of on high alert, right?

There's a sort of like a low-level hum of the office that seems to follow people where they are, even in their free time. So that's a really different relationship to work, and that's something that's quite new. The other thing that's happened, obviously, is that the weekend was a victory of organized labor, and as we've seen the weakening of unions, of their influence and power in society, we've also seen the erosion of some of those worker protections, including monitoring lengths of a work week and protecting the weekend. And then I guess the final factor is secularization, right? Many people are not as, we're more atheistic, less religious than we used to be,

and so we don't often have that kind of idea of sanctified time on the weekend, right? That's going to be time for church or synagogue or whatever it is. In a secular society, there isn't that sort of inborn scaffolding of the weekend. So I think people have a sense that, you know, we're working hard, we're working more, we're working on the weekends when we didn't used to and all that. But how do we know that's harmful? I mean, it sounds good, like we should take more time off, but says who? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of pretty solid research out there to suggest that overwork is not good for you. And as you say,

we know this intuitively, but now we actually have measures. People who work more than 50 hours a week are more prone to substance abuse issues, including alcoholism. Overwork leads to anxiety, mental health. So there is like a public health component to this. There's also the bigger societal question of what happens when we don't have time to be with one another, that old-fashioned kind of gathering. And the weekend used to really be the site of that. But if we're working through our weekends, there's a potential there for a weakening of social bonds, right? We know that a sense of belonging is the real key to happiness.

One's financial success, one's social status, actually doesn't breed happiness in people. But what does is feeling connected to others. So we don't have that time for those connections. Who are we? I think it is a really important question. So what do you say, though, to the person who says, look, I love my work, I like working on the weekends,

I have plenty of time to, you know, go to the baseball games and hang out with the kids and all that, but I don't want you telling me I shouldn't work weekends because I enjoy it. Yeah, I mean, listen, I also love my work, and many people in a certain class, and especially white-collar workers in the creative class and the knowledge economy, often really love our work and we're very bound up with our work. Our work and our identity can often feel very inseparable, right?

Ourself and our work self become one and the same. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm not trying to denigrate people who love their work. I think the question is, how is it sitting with you in your life? If it's not a problem, great. But what we're hearing is that people who are unable to separate their work self and their private self at some point during the week are losing out on those human connections, on a sense of meaning and purpose. You know, it's a bit of a cliche, that idea, you know, no one on their deathbed says,

I wish I'd worked more, right? Usually they say, I wish I'd had more experiences, more love, more passion, more art, more beauty, whatever it is, whatever the thing is that you might not be able to engage with because work has become all-consuming. It is important and it is an issue. And, you know, there's a little bit of Stockholm syndrome in our relationship to work too, right? If people say, but I love this, I love this. It's enough for me. You know, workplaces are set up so that we will feel that in many cases, right? Especially in this kind of post Silicon Valley mode where a lot of us are in offices that are really fun.

You know, we're on our bouncy balls, we're at our paintball, you know, staff parties. And that's fine. But just remember that all of those kinds of innovations, which do make work more pleasurable, are also designed to keep us working. And there's a lot that comes with that, right? And ask the people around you how they feel, how they feel about your relationship to work, and it might alter your own attitude. What do we know about what happens to the quality of work when people don't take time off, when they just keep working? Yeah, it's really interesting. And what we know is working longer does not mean working better. In fact, after about 40 hours of work per week, workers will begin to make errors.

There's palpable erosion in the quality of the work that they put out there. And you won't actually make a lot more widgets after about 40 hours. You might still be sitting in your chair or standing at the assembly line or whatever your work is, but what you're churning out is going to be compromised. And that happens a little bit after 40 hours. And then after 50 hours, it's a precipitous drop. It's like a cliff. The productivity really drops off.

Sometimes there can be crunch periods where people can work 50, 60, even 70 hours a week over two, maybe three weeks, and then they will be burnt out. And a lot of this data collected around this phenomenon comes from the gaming community, again, in Silicon Valley, because that is such a digital, it's such a crunch culture where people will be working for long, concentrated periods of time. And there's a lot of burnout in that world, and a lot of mistakes that have to be corrected

later are introduced. So this fantasy that working longer means working better, we really need to let that go. And this is a fairly uniquely American thing, because when you go to Europe, you don't, when you go to lots of places, you don't see this, you know, the more I work, the better I am kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, in North America, we are the new world.

And there's a sort of inborn hustle, right? Like, and this Protestant work ethic is very deeply ingrained. And again, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can balance it out with some true restoration and leisure. So yeah, what we have here in the States is kind of a cult of busyness. There was actually some research out of Stanford recently where these researchers posted two mock Facebook posts. One where the person said, I'm so exhausted, I'm so tired, I've been working so hard. And one where she said, I've just been out walking my dog in the woods and I feel so rested. And then they had people evaluate these two posts and read them for status. And everybody thought that the person who was exhausted and overworked was higher status,

more valued member of society, probably earned more money. And the other person who was enjoying life was a little bit lesser. I have a feeling this would not play out the same if you did it in many European countries, right? And this is a real inversion of how we used to think about leisure, right? The leisure class used to be people who had leisure, who had time off. But now we really venerate being busy and being overworked. And this has a kind of cultural currency that encourages this cult of overwork. Yeah, well, ask people how they've been, and what do they say?

They've been busy. They're busy. Everybody's busy. And there's kind of a competitiveness to that, right? Like, if you're in an office space, people will say, oh, I stayed till 8 last night. Oh, I stayed till 9.

Did you work? Oh, of course, I worked all weekend, right? And it becomes this kind of, we egg each other into these states of exhaustion. And it's a badge of honor. And it's not healthy. We're wearing it in our bodies and we're wearing it in our psyches. It's grinding us down. Well, from what you're saying is, you know, the longer you work, the worse your work gets

and the more your life and relationships suffer. So what's the upside? To working long hours, you mean? Yeah. Well, status, I think, is huge. Well, it was more of a rhetorical question, because there really isn't much of an upside. Well, you know, I think that what we think of as the upside is that it looks like success, right? And it's really hard for us to shake that mindset.

You have to be a pretty strong person to say, I actually am going to choose an existence that isn't about work and consumption. I'm going to at least choose parts. I'm going to protect parts of my week, a few hours, a weekend, whatever it takes, to be something and to be somebody who isn't just a worker. I mean, that was the original idea of the Sabbath, right? It was like the promise to the slaves that there was one day a week where they could put down the bricks and no longer be producing. And that's not something that a lot of people engage with anymore, right?

We think we have to infuse every minute. Every minute has to be utilitarian and has to be pushing us towards success and money and acquisition. Well, and I remember a time not all that long ago where, you know, on Sunday stores weren't open. They just weren't. And so now everything's 24-7. You can go to the store anytime you want, buy anything you want, and somebody has to be working at that store. And so it's a cultural thing too, that we're just 24-7 all the time. Yeah. More, better, faster, that's been called, right? So yeah, if we are able to consume 24 hours a day, seven days a week, someone is going to be working 24-7, right? You know, I think about this when I click, you know,

the Amazon website at 2 in the morning to order my book, that that click is sending somebody up a ladder somewhere to get that book, right? Like we're really linked in this idea of constant availability, constant work, constant consumption. We're all in it together. So what if somebody who has been living this life on a treadmill of working all the time and being proud of the fact that they work 80 hours a week, but maybe, you know, they realize that it's time. How do you start if you're not comfortable? I can imagine people when they're told, okay, now just take some time off. They wouldn't know how to do it or what to do.

I know, which is a scary idea, isn't it? That we actually don't know how to stop, how to switch off. So how do you stop? I think it requires a kind of commitment to leisure, the same level of commitment that we usually apply to our work lives? I mean, we're very good. This is the good news, is that this very strong North American work ethic could be applied to leisure and to the rest of our lives, too, which means being really vigilant.

And, you know, for me me doing this project about the weekend, I really try now to block off a chunk of time every weekend. If I'm not going to get a full 48 hours, it's not always realistic, let's face it. There are many demands, domestic and professional, that approach on the weekend. But if I can get a few hours that are just purposeless, where I can wander, where I can go into the woods, where I can kind of get out of my head and my work self or even just be with the people that I love in a really concentrated, real way, not just watching TV together. I feel so rejuvenated. And so I'm trying to commit to that time with the same kind of commitment that I have to

my professional life. So I mean, that's the first step would probably be to just block it off and see how it goes, you know, and baby steps. If it's an hour, then it's an hour. Turn the phone off, put the phone away on the weekend and just really decide, like, what am I going to, what is my time going to be like? I think it's a, you know, it's sort of an existential question. Like, what is my life? How am I going to use this very fleeting time that I have? Well, if you're so busy that you don't have time to think about that, then you don't think about that.

Yeah, well, that's kind of the issue, isn't it? If work occupies all of our mental and emotional space it does prevent us from sort of digging deep into those other questions about life and about the people around us and about our communities too you know like i really think of this as um as a social issue because if we're working all the time when do we participate uh in the world in which we live and when do we participate in the world in which we live? And when do we, you know, when are our powers of empathy tuned into our neighbors and into our surroundings? I think it really is a question of community building, too. Well, I think this is a story that people have heard before, that when you work too much, when you don't take time off, when you don't take vacations,

the work can suffer, your health can suffer, your mental health can suffer, and yet people still do it. So clearly something's going on here, and I think you've laid out exactly what. Katrina Onstad has been my guest. She is the author of the book The Weekend Effect, and you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. If you find that your smartphone battery is dying too quickly, there is one way to extend the battery life significantly,

and that is to delete the Facebook app. In tests, Android phones retain 20% more power by eliminating the Facebook app and then using the Safari browser instead. Doing the same thing on the iPhone, save 15% of the power. And yes, there are some Facebook features on the app that you can't get through the browser, so you have to decide if it's worth it, but it will save your battery power. And in addition to saving power, you'll also get a big chunk of storage back because the Facebook app uses up a lot of storage just sitting there. Snapchat is another app that sucks a lot of power, but there is no web equivalent. And that is something you should know. And that's the podcast today. I'm

Micah Ruthers. I appreciate you listening to Something You Should Know. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity. The pair form an unlikely partnership

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Starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan. Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts. Contained herein are the heresies of Rudolf Bantwine, erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator. Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues and uncover the blasphemous truth that ours is not a loving God and we are not its favored children.

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