Latest news with #infiniteworkday
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
‘The Infinite Workday': 5 Signs It's Ruining Your Relationship
Research shows that "the infinite workday" of overworking can slowly interfere with and deteriorate ... More your intimate relationship unless you take preventive actions. Has your partner failed to appear at family gatherings too many times because of a busy workday? Has he promised to spend more time with you and not delivered because he's overloaded at work? Has she said, 'I'll quit working 24/7 tomorrow,' but tomorrow never comes? Or has he stood you up or kept you waiting because he's trying to get caught up? If you answered yes to these questions, 'the infinite workday' could be undermining your relationship. When 'The Infinite Workday' Becomes Work Infidelity Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index Annual Report reveals the concept of 'the infinite workday,' where 40% of employees are up by six a.m. checking emails, and by ten p.m. 29% are back into their inboxes. With the emergence of AI and hybrid working, the modern workday has become boundless, stretching from early morning email checks through late evening meetings and weekends, sometimes turning into work infidelity. Ethan's infinite workday was like a weekend lover. He lied to his fiance so he could rendezvous with work at the office: 'I'd tell her I was going to to Dave's to watch the game on a Saturday, and I'd end up in my office working. After calling and not finding me, she'd call the office and say, 'I thought you were going to Dave's. 'I felt like I'd been caught with my hand in the cookie jar.' Jena told me that her marriage revolves around her husband's impossible work schedule, describing how she has lived with loneliness, disappointments, broken promises, anger and chaos. 'Nobody can ever understand my pain when they see the million-dollar house I live in or my beach house, the cars, boat, clothes and travel,' she said. 'I have luxury that some people dream about, and most importantly, I have a dedicated husband who works hard for the family." She describes living like a single mother for her three sons, watching her husband's workday out of control, killing himself working weekends until 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, taking no lunch breaks, conducting business while wolfing down meals, even while in the bathroom. She says on vacations he's unable to relax without working, that he works while driving and has had several accidents. Sara told her husband she'd enrolled in an aerobics class after work to escape his pressure to come home on time. But the truth was, after working overtime online in her office, she changed from business outfit to aerobic garb, tousling her hair and dampening her tights with water to convince her husband she had ended her infinite workday. Research: 'The Infinite Workday' Harms Relationships I led a research team at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in a series of the first studies on couples in which one partner was caught up in the infinite workday. We found that couples in these marriages are far more likely to divorce than couples when neither party is an infinite worker. Women in infinite workday marriages report far more marital estrangement, emotional withdrawal and thoughts of separation and divorce than women not in infinite workday marriages. Their husbands toil an average of nine and a half more hours a week than the husbands who have work balance. Only 45% of women in infinite workday relationships were still married, compared to 84% of the women not in those marriages. My team repeated the study, asking husbands to rate their marriages. Husbands who perceived their wives as infinite workers are more likely to describe greater incidences of marital estrangement and negative feelings. Together, these two studies suggest that the strength and cohesion of a relationship is associated with the presence or absence of their partner's infinite workday. Signs Of 'The Infinite Workday' In Your Relationship If you're the partner or spouse of someone stuck in 'the infinite workday' cycle where your relationship comes second, your future could be in trouble, and chances are you . . 1. Feel alone, that your infinite working partner has left you with the responsibility of holding the relationship/family together. 2. Notice that your infinite working partner doesn't tolerate obstacles to working. 2. Feel unimportant and minimized, even innately defective, because your partner's workday steals attention from you. 3. Harbor feelings of anger, resentment, sadness and guilt. 4. Live under a distinct set of unwritten and unspoken rules, dictated by your partner's infinite workday. 5. Plan your social life and family activities around your partner's workday. Rebuilding A Relationship From 'The Infinite Workday' Sometimes infinite workers are not fully aware that their extreme workdays are harming their health or relationships, especially if they're working out of fear of layoffs, as many are. So, if the infinite workday starts to infiltrate your relationship, an open conversation is in order to keep it vital. It's important to speak openly and compassionately about your concerns. Find out if your partner shares those concerns and is interested in negotiating boundaries around the amount of time each of you spends working. Create a relationship vision and plan specific times to spend together. One possibility is to agree to carve out an evening hour to be together (without AI, cell phones, Internet or television). Meals are a great time to set boundaries in place and enjoy intimate conversations. See if you can agree that on weekends and vacations infinite workdays are off-limits and working on days-off are the exception instead of the rule. But no matter what, don't put your life on hold for your infinite worker. Many partners and spouses build their lives around their partner's work schedule because they want to feel connected and supportive, which is understandable. But you could be enabling the very behavior you want to stop. And it often leads to more hurt and disappointment. When you're longing to spend time with your partner, the key is to stop postponing your life. If you plan a trip to the zoo with the kids and your partner cancels (for the umpteenth time) because of last-minute job demands, go anyway. Or when he or she promises to be home in time for dinner and never shows, consider eating on time and, instead of putting dinner on the table at midnight, let your partner fix his own meal. Not out of anger, but out of self-care. Refrain from bringing electronic devices when she goes to bed sick, avoid making alibis for her absenteeism or lateness at social functions or family gatherings or covering for her by lying to business associates. And leave the responsibility with your partner to explain her absences. It's counterintuitive, but keeping the plans you make with your infinite partner is often the exact healing medicine your relationship needs. When you go alone, you often get your partner's attention, and it provides the groundwork for positive change. If all else fails, ask your partner to go with you to couples therapy to discuss how the infinite workday is interfering with your relationship. Or seek out a support group or individual counseling on your own.
News.com.au
23-06-2025
- Business
- News.com.au
Australians caught up in new ‘infinite workday' trend
Advancements in technology have been heralded as a game changer when it comes to flexible working. Forgot to respond to an important email? No need to trudge back to the office to log onto your computer, you can just do it from your phone. What once would have required an in person meeting is now a Zoom call and the rise of remote work means employees are saving countless hours each week they would have otherwise spent commuting. While there is no doubt all of these things have had a positive impact when it comes to the way people work, we are now starting to see the flexibility scales tip so far that it is actually having a negative impact on work-life balance. Being able to send of a quick email after hours has turned into scrolling through your inbox as soon as you wake up. Having access to virtual meetings now means being asked to jump on a call at 8pm and being able to work from anywhere has turned into being expected to work at any time. This phenomenon has been dubbed the 'infinite workday', with Microsoft's 2025 Work Trend Index Annual Report revealing just how widespread it has become. An analysis of data from users of Microsoft 365 services found a series of disturbing changes in the way people are working around the world. In describing the chaos of the seemingly infinite workday trend, the report noted that 'it starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus-sapping flood of messages, meetings, and interruptions'. A whopping 40 per cent of users who are online at 6am are reviewing emails, with the average worker receiving 117 emails a day, the report found. By 8am, Microsoft Teams overtakes email as the dominant communication channel, with the average worker receiving 153 Teams messages a day, a 6 per cent year on year increase globally. Microsoft found that, during a standard eight-hour shift, the average worker is interrupted every two minutes by either an email, chat notification or meeting, adding up to 275 times a day. Speaking to Bryan Stallings, Chief Evangelist at Lucid Software, said, if left unchecked, this type of fragmentation will have a severe impact on workplaces across Australia and the rest of the world. 'The consequences of this systemic chaos are taking a toll on Australian workers,' Mr Stallings said. 'Left unchecked, this 'infinite workday' won't boost output. Instead, it leads to disengaged employees, crippling innovation due to a dwindling capacity for deep work, and a workforce unable to truly adapt at 'the speed of business', as research warns. 'This unsustainable model demands a fundamental shift towards intentional design that moves away from accidental chaos and towards visual clarity in how we work.' With employees receiving all these interruptions during the standard work day, you might be wondering, when does this leave time for any actual work to be done? The answer is, it doesn't. Which is why an increasing number of employees are logging back on at night so they can focus on their work without being interrupted. Microsoft found that, for remote workers, they often see evening hours as a productive window to catch up on work, but hybrid workers are more likely to experience that same time as a source of stress. The research found that meetings after 8pm are up 16 per cent year on year and the average employee now recited more than 50 messages outside of core business hours, By 10pm, 29 per cent of active workers are back in their inboxes trying to get on top of the influx of emails. Work is also spilling over into the weekend, with the data showing almost 20 per cent of employees actively working on the weekend are checking their email before noon on Saturday and Sunday. It is clear that boundaries are quickly eroding, with one in three employees saying the pace of work over the past five years makes it impossible to keep up. 'This points to a larger truth: the modern workday for many has no clear start or finish,' the report states. 'As business demands grow more complex and expectations continue to rise, time once reserved for focus or recovery may now be spent catching up, prepping, and chasing clarity.' Ending the infinite workday isn't just about individual workers putting boundaries in place to protect their work-life balance. While its vital to have personal limits, Mr Stallings pointed out they are often 'rendered ineffective by broken systems', with the primary responsibility of addressing these issues lying with executive leadership. He said that senior management must shift focus from where work gets done to how it gets done. Recent research from Lucid has revealed the systematic roadblocks facing Australian employers, with 35 per cent citing a lack of standardisation and 34 per cent pointing to insufficient automation. The data showed that only 31 per cent of Australians have been trained on effective hybrid collaboration, leaving room for communication breakdown. 'Expecting Aussies to set boundaries in a chaotic system without executive leadership's intentional design also erodes psychological safety,' Mr Stallings said. 'Often, management talks about a sustainable pace while inadvertently rewarding 'hero' behaviours that undermine work-life balance, sending deeply conflicting signals.' The Microsoft research points to artificial intelligence as one of the tools that can be used to help redesign the rhythm of work and give people their time back. However, when it comes to Aussie workplaces, there is a still a major literacy gap when it comes to using AI effectively. Kade Brown, Workforce Solutions Director at RMIT Online, told that, because of the rapid pace of AI advancement outstripping traditional education, many Australians are missing the skills needed to confidently prompt, apply and evaluate using AI tools at work. 'AI offers powerful opportunities to boost productivity by streamlining repetitive tasks and freeing up individuals for more strategic, creative work,' he said. 'We need to use AI intentionally, set healthy boundaries, and ensure it enhances (not replaces) human judgment.' In order to thrive in the evolving AI landscape, Mr Brown said people need to embrace a lifelong learning mindset. PwC has estimated AI will contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with Mr Brown noting that, for those ready to adapt, the 'potential for transformation is enormous'. 'For the individual, staying curious, continuously upskilling, and building digital confidence are now essential,' he said. 'Businesses that invest in training, particularly in areas like AI literacy, won't just keep pace, they'll lead.'
Forbes
18-06-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Microsoft Warns AI Alone Won't Solve The 'Infinite Workday'
A wave of burnout impacts employees across industries as the 'infinite workday' blurs boundaries ... More between work and life. You wake up early, only to find your inbox full of work emails. Throughout the day, notifications interrupt you every two minutes and by evening, you're still trying to catch up. Sound familiar? You're trapped in what Microsoft calls the "infinite workday"—a seemingly endless cycle where work has no clear beginning or end. Microsoft's recent analysis reveals that workers face an average of 275 interruptions daily, with 40% of people already scanning emails by 6 a.m. and nearly one-third returning to their inboxes by 10 p.m. While AI promises to rescue us by automating routine tasks and streamlining workflows, technology alone can't solve the infinite workday crisis. Instead, organizations need to embrace a cultural shift toward healthy boundaries, thoughtful leadership and a focus on well-being. The timing of meetings creates a particularly insidious problem. Half of all meetings occur between 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., precisely when neuroscientists identify natural productivity peaks due to circadian rhythms. Instead of leveraging these optimal focus periods for deep work, organizations fill them with collaborative activities that fragment attention. According to the data, nearly 60% of meetings are ad hoc calls without calendar invites, and one in 10 scheduled meetings are booked at the last minute. PowerPoint edits spike 122% in the final ten minutes before meetings, suggesting widespread last-minute preparation. "It's the professional equivalent of needing to assemble a bike before every ride," Microsoft researchers observed. "Too much energy is spent organizing chaos before meaningful work can begin." Microsoft's research reveals that meetings after 8 p.m. have increased 16% year-over-year, driven by geographically dispersed teams and flexible work arrangements. The average employee now sends or receives 58 instant messages outside core working hours, a 15% increase from the previous year. This urgency extends beyond traditional work hours. Nearly 20% of employees actively work on weekends, with more than 5% returning to email on Sunday evenings, creating measurable "Sunday scaries." Organizations are turning to AI in hopes that automation will restore balance by handling routine tasks. Microsoft highlights 'Frontier Firms,' where successful AI integration has led 71% of employees to say their company is thriving, compared to just 37% globally. But this level of success takes more than simply adding new tools. These companies redesign entire business processes around AI to see real results. Research from Cornell University reinforces this point. In a study of over 7,000 knowledge workers, AI tools helped reduce the time spent on email and documents but made little difference in meetings or collaborative work —the real drivers of the infinite workday. The research makes it clear that without rethinking how teams coordinate and communicate, AI alone won't fix an always-on work culture. Becoming a Frontier Firm requires more than deploying AI tools. Jamie Teevan, Microsoft's chief scientist, explains that crafting effective AI prompts "actually increases our metacognitive burden." Workers must think clearly about the steps they want AI to perform and provide detailed instructions, a process requiring concentration and the ability to transform tacit knowledge into explicit directions. "AI is delivering real productivity gains, but it's not enough," Teevan notes. "The speed of business is still outpacing the way we work today." Many companies treat AI as simply another software tool rather than a catalyst for restructuring work processes. Alexia Cambon, a lead researcher on Microsoft's Work Trends Index, suggests viewing AI "like a digital colleague" to which entire tasks can be assigned. Out of the 31,000 companies Microsoft analyzed, only 840 met Frontier Firm criteria. Most were technology companies or "AI native" startups that designed processes around AI from the beginning. The infinite workday persists because leaders haven't fundamentally questioned how work gets structured and valued. Microsoft's research shows that successful AI adoption requires changing organizational management structures, not just implementing new tools. Breaking the cycle requires leaders to move beyond viewing AI as just another productivity tool. Instead, they must embrace a fundamental reimagining of how work gets done, focusing on outcomes rather than activities and designing processes around human capacity rather than technological capability. Frontier Firms demonstrate several key leadership approaches: • Prioritize impact over activity: Focus on the 20% of tasks that create 80% of business value. • Redesign workflows, don't just automate them: Question whether status reports are necessary rather than just making them more efficient. • Deploy AI as autonomous agents: Use AI to handle entire workflows, with employees becoming "agent bosses" managing AI systems independently. • Adopt flatter organizational structures: Form teams around specific projects rather than functional expertise, allowing organizations to leverage AI to fill skill gaps and move quickly. Organizations can begin with concrete changes that don't require massive AI or technology investments: The companies that successfully escape the infinite workday will recognize the problem as fundamentally organizational, not technological. They will use AI not to work faster within broken systems but to redesign work around human capacity and organizational purpose. Leaders who recognize this distinction can create workplaces that leverage both human potential and AI to achieve sustainable high performance. The question is not whether AI will change work but whether leaders will use this technological transformation to finally design work that works for humans.
CNN
17-06-2025
- Business
- CNN
Welcome to the ‘infinite workday' of 8 p.m. meetings and constant messages
Workers are struggling to cope with a 'seemingly infinite workday,' involving an increasing load of meetings scheduled at 8 p.m. or later and a near-constant stream of interruptions, according to new research by Microsoft. The company analyzed data from users of Microsoft 365 services — which include Outlook and PowerPoint — globally between mid-January and mid-February. It found that the number of meetings booked between 8 p.m. and just before midnight had risen 16% compared with last year. Geographically dispersed teams, as well as those with flexible working arrangements, were responsible for much of that increase. 'The infinite workday… starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus-sapping flood of messages, meetings, and interruptions,' Microsoft said in a report Tuesday. The company found that the average worker is interrupted every two minutes by a meeting, an email or a chat notification during a standard eight-hour shift — adding up to 275 times a day. And those messages don't stop after they've clocked off. During the study period, the average employee sent or received 58 instant messages outside of their core working hours — a jump of 15% from last year. The typical worker also receives 117 emails per day and, by 10 p.m., almost one-third of employees are back in their inboxes, 'pointing to a steady rise in after-hours activity,' Microsoft noted. 'The modern workday for many has no clear start or finish,' the company said in its report. 'As business demands grow more complex and expectations continue to rise, time once reserved for focus or recovery may now be spent catching up, prepping, and chasing clarity.' 'It's the professional equivalent of needing to assemble a bike before every ride. Too much energy is spent organizing chaos before meaningful work can begin,' it added. One outcome is that one-third of workers feel it has been 'impossible to keep up' with the pace of work over the past five years, according to a Microsoft-commissioned survey of 31,000 employees around the world, cited in the Tuesday report. 'Each email or message notification may seem small, but together they can set a frenetic tempo for the day ahead,' the company said. Half of all meetings take place between 9–11 a.m. and 1–3 p.m., Microsoft also found, 'precisely when, as research shows, many people have a natural productivity spike in their day, due to their circadian rhythms.' Ultimately, Microsoft said, meeting-hungry bosses and colleagues sap workers' productivity, with some time-starved employees forced to catch up at the weekend. 'Instead of deep work… prime hours are spent cycling through a carousel of calls,' the company noted. Artificial intelligence could help lighten the load for workers, according to Microsoft. The technology can help carry out 'low-value' administrative tasks, it said, freeing up time for people to work on what truly benefits the organization. However, the rise of AI has fueled anxiety about the technology's potential to oust human workers from their jobs. According to a survey by the World Economic Forum, published in January, 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks. CNN's Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.
CNN
17-06-2025
- Business
- CNN
Welcome to the ‘infinite workday' of 8 p.m. meetings and constant messages
Workers are struggling to cope with a 'seemingly infinite workday,' involving an increasing load of meetings scheduled at 8 p.m. or later and a near-constant stream of interruptions, according to new research by Microsoft. The company analyzed data from users of Microsoft 365 services — which include Outlook and PowerPoint — globally between mid-January and mid-February. It found that the number of meetings booked between 8 p.m. and just before midnight had risen 16% compared with last year. Geographically dispersed teams, as well as those with flexible working arrangements, were responsible for much of that increase. 'The infinite workday… starts early, mostly in email, and quickly swells to a focus-sapping flood of messages, meetings, and interruptions,' Microsoft said in a report Tuesday. The company found that the average worker is interrupted every two minutes by a meeting, an email or a chat notification during a standard eight-hour shift — adding up to 275 times a day. And those messages don't stop after they've clocked off. During the study period, the average employee sent or received 58 instant messages outside of their core working hours — a jump of 15% from last year. The typical worker also receives 117 emails per day and, by 10 p.m., almost one-third of employees are back in their inboxes, 'pointing to a steady rise in after-hours activity,' Microsoft noted. 'The modern workday for many has no clear start or finish,' the company said in its report. 'As business demands grow more complex and expectations continue to rise, time once reserved for focus or recovery may now be spent catching up, prepping, and chasing clarity.' 'It's the professional equivalent of needing to assemble a bike before every ride. Too much energy is spent organizing chaos before meaningful work can begin,' it added. One outcome is that one-third of workers feel it has been 'impossible to keep up' with the pace of work over the past five years, according to a Microsoft-commissioned survey of 31,000 employees around the world, cited in the Tuesday report. 'Each email or message notification may seem small, but together they can set a frenetic tempo for the day ahead,' the company said. Half of all meetings take place between 9–11 a.m. and 1–3 p.m., Microsoft also found, 'precisely when, as research shows, many people have a natural productivity spike in their day, due to their circadian rhythms.' Ultimately, Microsoft said, meeting-hungry bosses and colleagues sap workers' productivity, with some time-starved employees forced to catch up at the weekend. 'Instead of deep work… prime hours are spent cycling through a carousel of calls,' the company noted. Artificial intelligence could help lighten the load for workers, according to Microsoft. The technology can help carry out 'low-value' administrative tasks, it said, freeing up time for people to work on what truly benefits the organization. However, the rise of AI has fueled anxiety about the technology's potential to oust human workers from their jobs. According to a survey by the World Economic Forum, published in January, 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce as AI automates certain tasks. CNN's Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.
