Germany has the best configuration regarding work/life balance as usual. When you are overworked you are too tired long term to create productivity improvement

Germany has the best configuration regarding work/life balance as usual. When you are overworked you are too tired long term to create productivity improvements. When you can work less or make improvements to help you work less, you have a reason to create tools, processes, systems to work faster and more efficient. Example: if you worked 65 hours resulting in 40 hours of actual work, there is little time for building systems and tools that help you, if you are working 35 hours and actually working 30ish then you have lots of thinking time and you actually work more when in work mode. Humans need thinking time in their work, nearly all innovations come from problems found at work, where there is time to create long term solutions. I believe even rote tedious labor can be creative and lead to innovation as long at there is time for open and closed modes as John Cleese puts it. [1] > We've become fascinated by the fact that we can usually describe the way in which people function at work in terms of two modes: open and closed. > So what i can just add now is that creativity is not possible in the closed mode. By the "closed mode" I mean the mode that we are in most of the time when {we are} at work. > It's a mode in which we're very purposeful, and it's a mode in which we can get very stressed and even a bit manic, but not creative. > By contrast, the open mode, is relaxed… expansive… less purposeful mode… in which we're probably more contemplative, more inclined to humor (which always accompanies a wider perspective) and, consequently, more playful. > It's a mood in which curiosity for its own sake can operate because we're not under pressure to get a specific thing done quickly. We can play, and that is what allows our natural creativity to surface. > When Alexander Fleming had the thought that led to the discovery of penicillin, he must have been in the open mode. > But let me make one thing quite clear: we need to be in the open mode when we're pondering a problem but once we come up with a solution, we must then switch to the closed mode to implement it. Germany with their low working hours, allows more thinking, open modes and creativity, that leads to productivity improvements for closed mode work. The US system has efficiently worked out creativity and input from lower levels, more hours at work in closed mode and the uppers get to creatively move the resources around the board but are actually failing to grasp that they are missing half the equation, the open mode and creativity. They want their workers in closed mode while they are open to come up with efficiencies based on metrics, that misses whole swaths of knowledge from the actual work process and creativity that could be innovating to productivity improvements. The worker also finds little joy in an always closed mode job. Even if the job is a closed only mode job, less hours can lead to open modes that allow improvement even away from the work. [1] https://genius.com/John-cleese-lecture-on-creativity-annotated https://genius.com/John-cleese-lecture-on-creativity-annotat...