Grind culture, the glorification of work without rest or play in the relentless pursuit of your #goals, is bad.

Bold statement, I know.

Plenty of folks who are substantially smarter than me have written entire books and lectures on this exact topic. So what more can really be said?

Probably not much, but I do want to highlight a different angle here. When I say that grind culture is “bad”, I don’t mean in an ethical or well-being sort of way.

Like, ok, obviously, yea, our glorification of the grind inherently devalues human life, driving horrible outcomes both in terms of ethics and well-being. So the grind is definitely bad in that sense. However, at this very moment, I am making the argument that grind culture is bad at achieving its stated goals.

The entire point of grind culture is that, by working harder and longer than anyone else, you will be better than anyone else and achieve goals no one thought was possible. So you have to just keep pushing! Never stop! Try harder! Eat coffee for lunch and make sleep deprivation your drug of choice (yes, this is something real people have said earnestly). If your work is subpar, then clearly that means you aren’t working hard enough! If you adopt this attitude and grind until you can grind no more, you will produce better work than any of your “lazy” peers who aren’t pushing as hard. So, keep it up!

Most of the debate and critiques of this perspective seem to start with the assumption that the above statements are basically true. Arguments tend to run along the lines of, “Sure, you will be more productive if you push yourself like that, but at what cost? Think of your children/spouse/loved ones/friends and how they are impacted! Think about how your relentless grind is killing the planet!” — all very valid concerns!

But I actually want to throw that initial assumption entirely out. Beyond short bursts in crunch times, I want to argue that grind-focused work ethics actually lead to lower productivity and worse business outcomes.

Surprising no one who knows me, I was an annoying overachiever in undergrad. For me, this behavior was anxiety-driven — I thought that the only way I could be Successful™️ was if I kept pushing myself to work harder and harder.

And this strategy sucked.

Fun fact! Did you know, with the right amount of sleep deprivation and stress, you can experience mild visual hallucinations and paranoia? 0 out of 5 stars, do not recommend!

 Anyway — perhaps the most life-changing information I learned during my psych studies is that taking breaks is essential to brain function. Pausing to rest and play leads to better learning outcomes, greater creativity, and overall better cognitive functioning.

Said differently, your work output will, on average, be better if you make time for breaks throughout the day and make sure you are getting adequate sleep. Play is critical as well. Whereas perpetually grinding will, well, grind down your faculties, leading to worse memory, worse cognitive functioning, and worse work outputs on average. It turns out, when compared to “move fast and break things”, slow and steady does win the race — primarily because the “thing” being broken when you move fast, is you.

If you’re curious about the science behind the claims above, Emily and Amelia Nagoski’s book, Burnout, has a truly excellent chapter on the many forms “rest” can take, and it is chock full of citations from the peer-reviewed literature. So it’s a great starting place!

If we’re being honest, grind culture is often not really a choice for the people doing the grinding. Either economic realities force them to push themselves harder and harder in order to stay afloat, or they have been taught that grinding is the only way to succeed in their organization or industry. Thus, I want to be very clear that I’m not prescribing a list of things for individual contributors to do to fix their unhealthy habits. There are strategies that one can use to help protect your time, but those strategies depend a lot on your personal context.

Instead, I want to focus on what people leaders can do, given that they have more power to make a difference.

First, prioritize and protect your own rest. That’s right, step 1 is all about you! Your direct reports all pay very close attention to how you work as a guide or template to how they should work. Which makes sense! If they want a good performance rating from you, mirroring your performance is a solid strategy. So find ways to log off! Make sure your team knows that you will typically log off at a certain time each day and tell them how you are prioritizing taking your own PTO. And critically, follow through.

Second, keep tabs on your team’s work and PTO habits. Is one person routinely logging on early and staying on super late? Ask them about it! Do you have a team member who is leaving PTO on the table? Encourage them to put some PTO on the calendar! Make it clear to them that you want them to take breaks and that PTO is part of their pay and benefits package. I’ve been fortunate that every boss I’ve had has been willing to pull me aside and make sure I’m taking time off, and it makes a damn difference.

 Third, find ways to create breaks for your team. This advice is trickier to pull off in a way that feels good for employees, but there are real potential upsides. It could look like turning your team meeting into a coffee or lunch break, where there are no expectations of productive talk. Or it could look like spontaneously giving your team a Friday afternoon off (and then watching Teams/Slack like a hawk, making sure that your team actually logs off). The point is, building in structured time when your team has the clear expectation that they shouldn’t be working can help provide little buffers here and there for rest.

The goal of all of these strategies is to actively dissuade grind-like behavior, especially as a long-term approach to work. Reducing the glorification of grind culture is a net good for society. It allows us all to better prioritize other elements of our life, such as our loved ones, hobbies, and rest itself. Ironically, it also helps us all be more productive and creative while we’re at work as well.

Ultimately, rest is productive, and our organizations will be better off if they ensure teams are taking care of themselves.