"I work over eighty hours a week!" a friend recently quipped. My brow furrowed. "Eighty hours? That seems like an awful lot." My friend took in a slow, deep breath. "It's non-stop. From the moment I get out of bed until the moment I pass out in that same bed, my fingers are on the keyboard responding to..." he trailed off a moment. "To goodness knows what!" Workload creep This scenario was not the first one of its ilk to play out in my office: I see hundreds of people every year that cannot fathom the number of hours they are plunging into work. Time and time again, it is straightforward for me to see that these people have no idea exactly how they are spending their time. By extension, they may not even be sure how many hours are "real" work hours versus "busy" hours. Busy Hours Busy hours represent time spent on interstitial tasks that prevent people from doing actual work. "Describe to me how you typically spend