Bosses, busy seasons and other hard cases

If the pressure comes from your manager. First check that it does. Many people assume an expectation that nobody has ever stated. Have the conversation in chapter 16 and see what happens. If your manager really does expect long hours as a matter of course, put the discussion on the ground of output. Agree what you're to deliver, and ask to be judged on that. If the answer is still that you must be seen at your desk until seven, you've learned something important about the job. You can stay and accept it with open eyes, you can push back with the help of a union or Acas, or you can look for a better employer. Any of those is better than letting the hours continue on the assumption that they must.

If the workload really doesn't fit. Give the stop an honest month, cutting the low-value work first. If the essential work still can't be done, write down what isn't getting done and take it to your manager as a question of priorities. "I can do A, B and C in the time. D and E won't fit. Which matters most, or can we get help?" Every manager knows how to answer that question. It turns your private overload into a decision about resources that the organisation has to make, as it should.

If your profession runs on billable hours or visible devotion. Law, consulting, finance, medicine and some others build long hours into the career structure. I won't pretend a rule from a short book undoes that. What you can do is apply the ideas inside the constraint. Protect a full day off, guard your sleep, keep work out of whatever evenings you do have, and be honest with yourself about how many of your hours are productive and how many are for show. And make a deliberate decision about how many years you're willing to work this way, so that it doesn't carry on by default.

If you're self-employed or run the business. With no contract, a stop matters more to you than to anyone, because nobody else will ever send you home. The fear is that every hour not worked is money lost. Pencavel's curve applies to owners too. Set your stop, keep your day off, and watch what happens to your income over three months. Most people find that it doesn't fall.

If you teach, nurse, or do any job where the work is for people who need you. Marking, planning and paperwork will take every evening you offer them, and the people you serve are real. But a worn-out teacher or nurse serves them worse. Set a limit on the hours you'll give to work at home, put them at fixed times, and let some things be done less thoroughly. If the job can't be done within any reasonable limit, that's a matter to raise with colleagues and unions, because one person's weekends won't solve it.

If you work across time zones. Agree which hours you're reachable, make them known, and move your stop to suit. An early call can be balanced by an early finish. Don't let your day stretch to cover both ends.

If you work from home. Without a journey home to end the day, you need something else to end it. Work in one place, and at the stop close the laptop and put it away out of sight, in a bag or a drawer. A ten-minute walk round the block afterwards can do the job that the commute used to do.

If it really is a crunch. If it's the year-end close, a product launch or a court date, work the hours, under the exception rule. Decide the end date in advance, keep your day off even then, and return to your stop the day after it ends. When the day after comes, you'll have to make yourself do it, because that's the point at which habit tries to hold on to the longer hours.

If you need the money from overtime. Then the hours aren't a habit, and most of this book isn't aimed at you. The evidence on rest still applies. Protect your sleep and your day off as far as you can, and be especially careful with driving and machinery at the end of long shifts.

If work is where you hide. Sometimes the hours are long because home is hard. There might be a strained relationship, a bereavement, or a loneliness that the office covers. If you suspect that's part of it, be honest with yourself about it. Cutting your hours will bring you face to face with whatever you've been avoiding, and it would be wise to line up some support first. That might be a friend, your GP, or a counsellor.

If you're already burnt out. If you're exhausted beyond what a weekend fixes, detached from work you used to care about, and struggling to function, a stop isn't enough, and you shouldn't try to fix this alone. See your GP, as the preface said. You may need time off, and you should take it if it's offered.