" by the company 37signals. It got me thinking and this post comes from those thoughts. I'm also a big fan of their blog signal vs noise.--
I used to work in the recording industry. Work hours are typically long, 80 to 100 hours are common, and exhaustion is typical. The problem that I saw was that creativity and sleep deprivation are mortal enemies.
I can remember many times trying to record that one last vocal overdub or guitar lick and spending hours and hours in the wee hours of the morning trying to get it right only to come in the next day only after a short break, listening to the crap we laid down the night before and redoing hours or work in less than 10 minutes and blowing the previous performance out of the water.
Makes you think about how much of the rest of the song would be better if we had been working 8 hours insted of 22 and had a weekend off once in awhile. Would we be able to get 100 hours of work done in 50 hours with better results? I am guessing yes.
These were extreme conditions but you can apply this to more normal working hours as well. Give your employees an hour for lunch instead of half. Give them more holidays and breaks throughout the day. Many times when I am stuck on something I have been working on for hours I can solve it in minutes after taking just a two minute break.
Better rested equals better performing, more creative and happier.
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