You’re focused. You use your time well so that you can accomplish as much as possible. Because you’re busy, you don’t have time to exercise, and you grab some fast food because it’s quicker.
That makes about as much sense as trying to save time by never buying gasoline, then having to walk to work when the car dies.
Healthy habits increase our energy and improve both our performance and our satisfaction on the job. It may take more time, but in the end, preserving your own health makes possible everything else you want to do.
Kathryn has a time-consuming, demanding job in a major accounting firm. “With that lifestyle, you are constantly under stress working with Fortune 500 companies who want what they want when they want it. Exercise, eating right—those were things I hadn’t had time for in twenty years.”
Her doctors advised her that her health was at risk. She listened.
Gone were the high-fat fast foods, and in place of an extra hour of work when she got home was an hour of walking.
The results have been fantastic. “I don’t know when I’ve felt so good,” Kathryn says. She not only feels better, she also works better now. “I’m more levelheaded. There’s still a lot to do, but I don’t feel like I have to knock anybody out of my way to do it.”
Comparing middle management employees, researchers have found that those whose careers continue to have momentum are 53 percent more likely to engage in healthy life habits than those whose careers are stalled.
Roberts and Friend 1998