I was studying for a test when I received yet another notification about Infosys CEO Narayan Murthy advocating longer working hours. This time, he was endorsing the 9-9-6 work culture introduced in China, which includes a hectic work schedule from 9 am to 9 pm, six days a week.
Fortunately, this system was later banned in China after employees began suffering from severe physical and mental distress. Yet it frustrates me that Mr Murthy continues to play the numbers game, pushing his employees to work longer hours without considering a simple truth: longer hours often lead to lower productivity.
The idea that working longer means working better has become popular in entrepreneurial circles and among people who promote “rich mindsets” and criticise “poor mindsets.” Much of it is attributed to figures like Elon Musk, who glorified extreme working hours as proof of discipline and ‘overnight’ success. What this ignores is the mental and psychological damage it causes.
I present to you- the power of the optimisation culture. What is the optimisation culture? Have you ever felt like you didn’t work as hard as your friends claim to be working? Do you feel your macros are higher or lower, or that higher calories equal weight gain? Well, that’s the problem with the culture we live in that we must track everything. Everywhere. All the time.
Life in the Optimised Lane
While researching this article, I stumbled upon a book titled Lost in Perfection: Impacts of Optimisation on Culture and Psyche, which featured articles edited by Vera King, Benigna Gerisch, and Hartmut Rosa. It examined how the optimisation culture occurred as a result of a dominant cultural logic of late capitalist society, where everything measurable becomes valuable, and everything valuable must be measured.
Across disciplines such as sociology and psychology, the contributors explore how optimisation shifts from intrinsic motivation to compulsion. To be perfect is to be inundated by endless tracking of yourself.
One of the book’s key insights is that optimisation works through internalisation. In simple terms, we convince ourselves that we constantly need fixing, checking, and recalculating. This idea was then shared with many people who touted this method to be ‘productive’ and ‘efficient’. But, how optimised are we, really?
What about non-working hours? When this logic enters into our personal lives, it leads to a breakdown in relationships, mental health and creativity. When we plan productive routines during the weekends or even the holidays, our anxiety intensifies. For example, we need to track our time, our sleep, and our calories all on vacation. To pause that would be a mistake.
This book calls this an aporia of optimisation, a situation where the pursuit of improvement produces the opposite effect. Individuals experience burnout, emotional numbness, and loss of purpose, a life reduced to statistics.
My Path Towards Self-Improvement and How I Failed (And Felt Good About It)
It was during the lockdown that I decided to do something about my life. From watching tutorials on how to use Blender (a 3D modelling software) to devoting my time to reading self-help books. Surrounded by four walls, I read my beloved gurus: Grant Cardone, Robert Kiyosaki, and Rhonda Byrne. You name it. I read them all.
I wrote down my list of goals to achieve for the future. I created a vision board: the dream girl, a car, a house, and probably, a new electric guitar (visualise that). Well, it never came through because I was too busy consuming insightful advice and not following it.
When the lockdown ended, I came out unmotivated and unprepared for reality. I struggled with mental issues, but more than anything, I struggled with time management. There was too much to do: animation classes, cooking, studying, and hanging out with friends. And everything drained me.
So I turned to time-management apps. Dozens of them (or probably thousands). Most were too complicated or simply exhausting to use. The Pomodoro timer was my favourite at first. Thirty minutes of studying, short break, switch subjects, rinse and repeat. I was hitting my productive levels.
But the result?
I looked productive. But I was burning out.
That’s when I decided to stop treating productivity as a rule and start using it as a tool. I still use Pomodoro, but only when necessary. I still procrastinate, no doubt about that, but I no longer feel I need a timer to determine how productive I am. I felt better.
Pushing Back Against the Optimisation Culture
Productivity matters. It helps us work better and live responsibly. However, when productivity becomes obsessive and calculated down to the last second, it turns into a destructive act. Creativity and mental health are neglected.
Optimisation may promise control, but delivers exhaustion with a dose of burnout. We feel liberated from inefficiency, but realise our self-awareness is trapping us at the same time.
It is okay to be inefficient sometimes.
It is okay to take breaks.
It is okay to touch the roses
It is okay to step outside work and breathe without tracking it.
Instead of glorifying hustle culture and relentless optimisation, we must learn to step back, reduce tracking, and stop measuring everything. You’re a human being, not a number or a statistic.
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