How To Work Less and Get More Done

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Help Wanted

Episode: How To Work Less and Get More Done
Air Date: May 14, 2026
Hosts: Jason Feifer (Entrepreneur Magazine Editor-in-Chief), Nicole Lapin (Money Expert)
Podcast: Money News Network

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Overview

In this episode, Jason Feifer delivers a powerful message: the myth that hustle and overwork are the only paths to professional success needs busting. Through stories, research, and personal examples, Jason challenges the glorification of burning the candle at both ends and encourages listeners to embrace "normalcy"—getting enough sleep and setting boundaries—while still achieving outstanding results. The episode provides practical advice on how to work less, get more done, and build a happier, healthier life.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Hustle Fallacy and Personal Accountability

Timestamp: 05:06 – 08:29

• Jason Feifer frames the problem: many people feel pressure to work incessantly, pushed by stories of entrepreneurs who “never stop.”

  • "You look around and you see all these people who are working it. They are pushing at all hours... And you feel so lazy compared to them. It just leaves you feeling perpetually behind." (Jason, 05:06)

• Jason shares the story of "Mike," a real founder who, inspired by hustle culture stories (Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Marissa Mayer, Mark Cuban), adopted their extreme work habits to the detriment of his happiness, health, and relationships.

• Jason reflects on media's role in perpetuating the myth:

  • "I feel partially responsible for this... My industry amplifies these kinds of stories... The outrageous ones are the ones that are told the most. As a result, we make the unusual sound usual." (Jason, 08:29)

2. Reality Check: What Does “Normal” Really Look Like?

Timestamp: 08:38 – 10:55

• Jason emphasizes that the real paths of successful people are often much more "normal" than reported.

• He recounts famous creative and entrepreneurial figures’ sleep schedules, showing they prioritized rest:

  • Beethoven: 10pm–6am
  • Maya Angelou: 10pm–5:30am
  • Charles Darwin: midnight–7am
  • Charles Dickens: midnight–7am
  • Immanuel Kant: 10pm–5am
  • Flannery O'Connor: 9pm–6am

• Memorable quote:

  • “Just imagine the entrepreneur coverage of that… Ludwig van Beethoven explains why he’s super comfy in bed by 10. It’s not so sensational, but it’s more honest.” (Jason, 10:35)

3. Permission to Choose a Sustainable Path

Timestamp: 10:55 – 12:55

• Jason gives listeners “permission to chill out”:

  • “Go live your own normal story. If you’re lucky, your life will be full of incredible and unusual things... But the foundations of your life do not have to be so unusual or incredible. They can be boring.” (Jason, 11:30)

• He acknowledges that sometimes hard work is required, but insists it's unsustainable as a rule.

4. Parkinson’s Law and Redefining Productivity

Timestamp: 12:05 – 13:00

• Introduction of Parkinson’s Law: “Work expands to fit the time allowed.” If you restrict work to normal hours, tasks will adjust accordingly.

• Practical productivity questions to ask:

  • “How else can I get this done?”
  • “Who else can I turn to?”
  • “What things aren’t worth doing right now?”
  • “What things maybe aren’t worth doing at all?”

• Mike, the founder, ultimately thrived after abandoning the hustle:

  • "He finally stopped sleeping at the office, and then he realized that with the right systems in place, he didn’t even need to work late. Now he said to me, I get a full night’s sleep at home and my company still grows. That guy is happier. He is healthier. His relationships are stronger." (Jason, 12:40)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Stories matter. Stories provide the frameworks for how to understand the world… And we don’t talk about this enough, but there is a massive downside to learning through stories like that, because not all stories get told.” (Jason, 08:55)
• "The normal stories do not get told enough, which is crazy because there are a lot more of them. So let's start telling some normal stories. How about that?" (Jason, 09:35)
• “The foundations of your life do not have to be so unusual or incredible. They can be boring.” (Jason, 11:35)
• “If we allow work to fill all hours of our lives, it will. But if we decide to live a regular life and to confine work to mostly regular hours, then we will force a different series of normal, boring events.” (Jason, 12:14)

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Important Timestamps

• 05:06: Jason challenges hustle culture and introduces “Mike’s” cautionary tale
• 08:29: Media’s impact on the narrative of overwork
• 09:35: Turning to “normal stories”—rest and routine of historically successful people
• 10:35: Humorous take on what “normal” coverage would look like
• 11:30: Permission for listeners to live a “normal story”
• 12:05: Parkinson’s Law and the importance of setting boundaries
• 12:40: Mike’s success after returning to healthy routines
• 13:54: Call to engage with the show and wrap-up

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Takeaways

• The myth of relentless hustle is overblown and often harmful—true, sustained success comes from healthy boundaries and routines.
• Even icons of creativity and business prioritize ordinary routines; their legacies are not built on chronic exhaustion.
• Media and society should tell—and value—more “normal” stories that reflect sustainable, happy, and truly productive lives.
• You can be healthy, rested, and successful. And that’s a story worth telling.

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For more practical tips, subscribe to Jason’s “One Thing Better” newsletter, a companion to the podcast, at OneThingBetter.email.

Transcript

[Jason Pfeiffer]

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[Nicole Lapin]

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[Jason Pfeiffer]

This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in Chief of

[Nicole Lapin]

Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

[Nicole Lapin]

And it starts now.

[Jason Pfeiffer]

You look around and you see all these people who are working it. They are pushing at all hours. They never seem to sleep hustle hustle, hustle. They're just constantly producing and you feel so lazy compared to them. It just leaves you feeling perpetually behind, like you're unable to rest. And as a result, you just try to keep doing more, to just squeeze more in, to demand more of yourself, to just go, today I'm going to give you permission to chill out. Because all that doing, all that squeezing, all that go, it is not making you happy. And it's probably not even leading to good work. So let's embrace some normalcy. And as we embrace normalcy, as we make it okay for us to just work normally, not crazily, we are still going to get everything important done for real. Because for all the wild stories out there about hustlers hustling, there is something important you need to know. It is not all what it seems. But before we get there, let's start with a founder who I recently met, who nearly drove himself into the ground. So I'm going to call this guy Mike. He has a company with hundreds of locations throughout North America. And he said to me the biggest mistake I made was sleeping at the office, end quote. Sleeping at the office. A thing he did, he did it often. In fact, during his company's early days, he would work to exhaustion. He would sleep on the couch and he would rise early to keep going. Why? Well, Mike told me he grew up on stories of work obsessed entrepreneurs. There was, you know, Steve Jobs starting emailing employees at 4:30am and Mark Cuban who didn't take a vacation for seven years. And Marissa Mayer who worked 130 hour weeks at Google. And of course, Elon Musk slept on the Tesla factory floor. These were the models that Mike absorbed. And as far as he knew, that was the only way to run a company. But Mike really struggled with it. He told me I was a terrible boss. He was tired and irritated. He resented his employees for not prioritizing work the way that he did. The stress and the absence strained his marriage. And I told him, when he told me all this, and this is real, I told him, I, Jason Pfeiffer, feel partially responsible for this. I really do. It's because I've been in media for decades now and my industry amplifies these kinds of stories. Just one example, I found this headline on entrepreneur.com, elon Musk explains why he's still sleeping on the Tesla factory floor. That was the headline. Stories matter. Stories provide the frameworks for how to understand the world. And we don't talk about this enough, but there is A massive downside to learning through stories like that, because not all stories get told. The outrageous ones are the ones that are told the most. And as a result, we make the unusual sound usual. I mean, you run enough stories about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Mark Cuban and all that, and, and that starts to sound normal. But the thing is, it's not. It's not normal. The normal stories do not get told enough, which is crazy because there are a lot more of them. So let's start telling some normal stories. How about that? All right. So people often ask me, for example, do you ever sleep? Which is a reasonable question. I have a big job and a lot of side projects. But. But the answer is pretty boring. Yes, I sleep. That's it. That's the answer. My kids are usually down by 9pm Then my wife and I will catch up and watch a show, read in bed. Lights are out by 11. And on weekdays, weekdays are a little tough. We wake up at 6:40am to get the kids ready for school. Weekends, we get to sleep in a little more. And this isn't just me. This is again, normal. I once found a book called Daily How Artists Work. And the author of this book had reconstructed the work schedules of famous artists, including, interestingly, when they slept. And they were fascinating in their usualness. For example, just gonna list off a couple here. Ludwig van Beethoven, that guy slept from 10pm to, to 6am Pretty normal. I mean, just imagine the entrepreneur coverage of that. We could go back to the original example. Elon Musk explains why he's still sleeping on the Tesla factory floor. All right. I guess the coverage of Ludwig would say something like, ludwig van Beethoven explains why he's super comfy in bed by 10. You know, it's not so sensational, but it's more honest. And here are a few other famous sleep schedules. So we've got Maya angelou sleeping from 10pm to 5:30am perfectly healthy. Charles Darwin sleeping from midnight to 7am Charles Dickens, also midnight to 7am Immanuel Kant sleeping from 10pm to 5am and Flannery O' Connor sleeping from 9pm to 6am good night's sleep. I know a lot of big time CEOs and they sleep well, sleep fine. I was just talking to a famous author. She told me that she wakes up at 3am to write and meditate, which sounds nuts until you learn that she goes to bed around 9pm so what I would like you to do after hearing those stories is go live your own normal story. I mean, look, if you're lucky, your life will be full of incredible and unusual things. You will do the stuff that others want to talk about. You will have experiences worth sharing. But the foundations of your life do not have to be so unusual or incredible. They can be boring. Some useful caveats here. Are there times where you must work hard, perhaps to the point of exhaustion? Yeah, but that's not sustainable and you shouldn't expect it to be. And this isn't just about sleep. I mean, maybe you have a weird sleep schedule. I don't know. That's fine. I'm making a point here. More about the basic structures of your life and how you prioritize them. There's a great theory called Parkinson's Law. The idea is that work expands to fit the time allowed. So if you have a lot of time to do things, you will take all that time. And if you have a little time, then you'll complete the task later. If we allow work to fill all hours of our lives, it will. But if we decide to live a regular life and to confine work to mostly regular hours, then we will force a different series of normal, boring events. We will instead ask ourselves things like how else can I get this done? And who else can I turn to? And what things aren't worth doing right now? And what things maybe aren't worth doing at all? That is what Mike, the founder who I met, ultimately learned for himself. He finally stopped sleeping at the office, and then he realized that with the right systems in place, he didn't even need to work late. Now he said to me, I get a full night's sleep at home and my company still grows. That guy is happier. He is healthier. His relationships are stronger. These are all good and normal things. Maybe they are not the stuff of legend, maybe they're not the stories that are told and retold, but they should be. So go tell that story for yourself. And that was originally written for my newsletter, One Thing Better, which is a companion newsletter to Help Wanted. Each week, One way to be more successful and satisfied at work and build a career or company you love. You can find it at OneThingBetter email. That is a web address. OneThingBetter email. I do read them here on Help Wanted, but if you subscribe, you'll get them much earlier, along with a whole bunch of other goodies that I publish. Onethingbetter Email Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason

[Nicole Lapin]

Pfeiffer and me, Nicole Lapin. Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. Do you want some help? Email our [e-mail] for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagram @moneynews and TikTokoney News Network for except exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance?

[Jason Pfeiffer]

Oh, I didn't sign up for that.

[Nicole Lapin]

All right, well, talk to you soon.