A Paradox We Can All Live By

Here's a diagnosis: Harvard students suffer from an unfortunate mental disposition to conflate work and play. Now, some of you may be pshaw-ing and pulling out your tattered lexicons to inform us that, no, you know the difference between those two words, thank you very much. Fair enough.

But seriously. We here at FlyBy are no exception. We work until we feel like it's play. Or we tell ourselves that work is play! It's amazing what the mind can do. We've all been there. Nothing feels quite as pleasurable as working yourself into the ground, crossing off that item from your to-do list, and then promptly adding some more items in preparation for the coming week. Man, that was awesome!

Well, Harvard Business School leadership professor Leslie A. Perlow headed a study that reveals that less work can mean better work. What?? Time for some major disillusioning, after the jump:

In the four-year study—the results of which will be published in the October issue of Harvard Business Review—members of twelve consulting teams at Boston Consulting Group had to take breaks during every work week. Not surprisingly, it was pretty difficult to force some of these individuals to relax: "we had to practically force some professionals" to get away from work, Perlow tells the Wall Street Journal.

No Blackberries, no work e-mails, nothing—for one evening every week after 6 p.m. At first, these people sort of freaked out. They had "tummy rumbles," which are "gut worries or concerns about their project," the WSJ reports. They felt like they should be doing something...well, productive, during these free evenings.

But the results revealed that the experiment helped consultants "communicate better, share more personal information and forge closer relationships." Work quality and morale improved. You see, the experiment targeted "bad intensity"—that feeling that you can't get anything done if you're not spending all your time working, that you need to be constantly on go-mode to keep yourself caught up.

It's a lesson that FlyBy thinks we could live by. Tummy rumbles don't sound pleasant.