Never work overtime again

How much money do you make per hour?

It's a simple calculation: just divide your monthly salary by your working hours.

But we often forget that many of us work more than just the regular hours. It's easy to stay half an hour or an hour late per day. Not to mention the crunch times at the end of projects.

We work overtime.

And for most of us that time is not compensated in money.

Taking that into account, recalculate your hourly pay. Did you notice a drop in your salary? That's because you're giving your employer some work for free.

You should stop doing that. Now.

Or maybe you are one of the lucky ones who get extra money for staying late at work. But even then overtime isn't good for you. Life isn't all about work, you know.

Why overtime is evil

My advice (I'm trying to follow it myself as well) is simple: just refuse to do overtime. Here's why:

1. When working overtime, you are giving your work away for free.
2. If the deadline set for your project is set too tight but you manage to finish on time by doing overtime work, you can be sure that the next deadline will be as tight as this one. If not tighter.
3. Working overtime makes you lazy during the regular hours. You fool around because you think that you can always catch up by working a few extra hours. If you don't count overtime as part of your daily routine, you'll work on your tasks more efficiently.
4. Working overtime makes you tired. And when you're tired, you are much more likely to make errors that you'll spend the next morning fixing up.
5. Being constantly tired and working non-stop will just burn you out.
6. Your family and friends would like to have you around every now and then as well.
7. In most cases your boss exaggerates the importance of the deadlines set for your projects. If most of the software projects miss their deadlines and the industry is still rather successful, I would say that missing deadlines can't be that crucial.
8. In fact, most of the deadlines you see in software projects aren't deadlines at all - they are just goals or worse yet, dreams. Some managers even try to make your deadlines as tight as possible to pressure the poor developer. If you need to work overtime to reach your deadline, it's not your fault, it's just poor project management.
9. If you work overtime, you put pressure on the rest of your team to do the same.
10. Working overtime doesn't really make you a hero - although your superiors like to make it look like that.

How to avoid overtime

Just say no.

You need to make a conscious decision not to do overtime ever again. As long as you still think somewhere deep in your mind that hard work makes you a hero, you won't stop doing it. The first step is to learn the mantra: "Overtime is evil" by heart.

When you agree completely, you can move on to the following tips:

1. Set an alarm to go off when your hours are full. When the alarm rings, go home.
2. Don't do other people's work. Trust others to do it for themselves.
3. Delegate.
4. When at work, work. Don't spend too much time chatting with your co-workers.
5. Avoid meetings.
6. Do the important tasks first. This way if your day ends before you have had the chance to finish all of your work, it doesn't matter that much.
7. Come in early. In the morning the office is quiet and you can concentrate better. If you have a door, close it occasionally to get some efficient working time.
8. Let everyone know that you are not doing overtime anymore. This way they won't expect you to be available at all times.
9. Try to get your work mates to quit doing overtime as well (tip: send them a link to this article)
10. Plan appointments after work. This way if you are asked to do overtime, you can just say that you cannot stay any longer because your friends are waiting for you.

If you have other proven tricks for avoiding overtime, please share them in the comments!

Remember that the real hero isn't the one who sacrifices his life for the company's sake, but the one who takes care of her life as a whole and stays stays fresh and productive by not working too hard.