A motivational speaker argues for strategic short-term overwork with a clear deadline, not chronic sleep deprivation. The idea: burn yourself out temporarily on a task that eliminates future work. Example: handle admin duties while recruiting your replacement, so once hired, you reclaim that time forever.
When should I burn the candle at both ends? We only have so many hours in a day, and if you've got a full-time job, you've got kids, you've got to work out how you're going to fit all these things inside your day. Already, if you've done, you know, you've read the Tim Ferriss 4-Hour Workweek, where are you going to find more time? Well, a lot of the time we find that by cutting out portions of our sleep. But the point that I'm getting at is a push of burning the candles at both ends. Ultimately, you're pushing towards something that is going to help make the rest of your life easier by doing so, and that should have a deadline as when this happens, I'm going to be able to take my foot off the accelerator. Let's say, for example, if you don't have an admin person, you may need to do the admin person's work while also finding someone at the same time. Now, there are two tasks, which is going to require more time, which means that you're going to have to push. But by doing Task B, which is finding the admin person, it's going to completely remove Task A. The push needs to be pushing towards something that's going to eliminate those tasks to get the time back.
