From the Ask Tom mailbag:

Question:

Yesterday, in a post about the Magic Pill, you said that a manager should only work 40 hours a week. There’s no way I can get all of my work done in 40 hours. You have to be kidding?

Response:

The Magic Pill is a mind-set. Forty hours a week is a mind-set. Of course, managers do work more than 40 hours a week, but the point is the mind-set. If you worked 80 hours in a week, would you be able to get all of your work done? The answer is no. The work of a manager is never done.

The point of the Magic Pill is two-fold. First, when you get tired, exhausted, burned out, your effectiveness drops off dramatically, down to zero. But the most important part of the Magic Pill is to work differently. The role of a manager is not the same as the work of a team member.

Let me tell you about the Super-Magic pill. It only allows for 10 hours of work in a week. If you took the Super-Magic pill and only worked 10 hours a week, what would you have to change to work effectively?

No, I am not kidding. I am as serious as a heart attack (the one you will have working 60-70 hours a week). -TF