The Price of Working Too Hard

Recent case of Karoshi, a Japanese word for dying because of working too hard, of a young employee in one of the elitist corporations in Japan, Dentsu, is again heating up the debate concerning Japanese working culture.

It is well-known that Japanese work really hard. And yes, there are a lot of people dying from working too hard (including committing a suicide.)

More detail: https://www.ft.com/content/0cd29210-8dd1-11e6-a72e-b428cb934b78

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In a modern society, productivity mainly comes from intellectual input and output rather than physical effort.

You should be mobilizing what Kahneman (2011) calls system 2 of our cognitive ability.

Since system 2 requires energy, if you are too tired, both mentally and physically, you cannot fully mobilize your system 2 when it is needed.

This is why working too hard could hamper your productivity.

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Surely, it is possible to mobilize system 1 rather than system 2. Then, you don’t need much energy because system 1 is always in operation automatically.

System 1 is a cognitive ability that we, human beings, have been nurtured throughout our historical evolution.

The thing is that though this system 1 has been serving humanity for its survival in the course of history, it comes with certain bias that could be inefficient in modern society.

System 1 is prone to what Arieli (2010) calls predictable irrationality. The role of system 2 is to check this and modify if necessary.

In the modern world, maybe system 2 plays more important role especially when it comes to productive activities. You need to take enough rest to fully mobilize system 2 when needed.

Notes:

Why system 2 is more important than system 1 in productive activity remains questionable.
To answer the question above, we need to think about where value comes from. I’m assuming that system 2 creates value more than system 1 but I need to explain why.

References

Ariely, D. (2010). Predictably irrational: The hidden forces that shape our decisions. New York: Harper Perennial.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.