It begins with an extra few hours at the office for a deadline. Then you start working a few extra hours every week… then every day… then you bring work home on the weekend. Suddenly, you can’t find where you work life stops and your personal life begins.

It can be necessary at times to “hustle”, but many people lose sight of their priorities and live the grind.

Evaluate these 3 areas to determine how much time you should really be putting in.

Finances
Time
Attention

Finances: Sometimes we need to work 60 hours a week to pay the bills, but often we can reduce that. Reverse engineer your goals, and see if you can accomplish them with fewer expenses. Really evaluate if you need those expenses. If you could work less by cutting back in some areas of life, you’re probably overworking yourself.

Time: We can get addicted to feeling busy. We fill our days with frivolous work that isn’t really necessary. Evaluate your work day and find activities that are really about “staying busy” instead of being productive. If you find that you spend excessive time doing “busy” things but not productive things, you might be overworking yourself.

Attention: Are you bringing work home in the form of “thoughts”? Are you thinking about work when you are with your family? Are you checking messages when you’re with your spouse? This can be an insidious symptom of overworking. You can’t always leave work at the door, but when it’s impossible to shut the thoughts off every day, you might be overworking yourself.