By Carol Kallendorf, Ph.D.

Those of us who have survived the Recession have spent the last three years living the gospel of squeezing every second of productivity out of every minute—and not just every minute at work, every minute . . . period. So we have tethered ourselves inextricably to what some are calling the “e-leash,” the technologies—cells, Palms, Blackberries, etc.—that allow us to be reachable and, in fact, working at all times.

As last year’s holiday season approached, I was struck by a comment I heard many clients and colleagues make, in almost the same words, “Things are so much better than they were, and I think 2004 is going to be great. I’m relieved. But I’m SO tired—just so tired.”

A couple of them went on to say, “Everything that’s going to get done this year is done. The rest is going to have to wait. I’m taking an extra two days off, because I just can’t do anymore and I can’t think anymore.”

High optimism combined with deep exhaustion. That pretty much sums up where a lot of people were at the end of last year.

Why? And what does it mean, moving forward?

In part, I think this phenomenon is the natural and unavoidable consequence of people having worked so hard to pull their companies and themselves through three tough economic years. It’s like the hour after you’ve crossed the finish line of a marathon—the euphoria fades and the exhaustion of the race and the months of training sets in.

Some that I talked to very consciously—and I would say, very wisely—allocated extra time these past holidays to re-charge.

But here’s the difference between a marathon and what I heard people expressing last winter. A marathon is a single event: you prepare for it, you train for it, you run it—and then you go back to a training and competition regimen that’s sustainable over the long-haul. You don’t, in other words, run a marathon every day or even every week.

That’s where the metaphor breaks down in a scary kind of way for our business lives.

This, to me, is the greatest hidden vulnerability of our economy. Activity-addiction is insidious and often masquerades as dedication and a great work ethic. But its potential costs in stress and burnout-related disease, turnover, mistakes, and missed opportunities are enormous.

You only have to look around yourself in any public place and (for most of us) take an honest look at yourself to see the 24/7 workday and the behaviors of activity-addiction. For myself, I often send emails at bizarrely early or late hours—and get emails with similar time-stamps. Frantic cell phone behavior is rampant; many people look almost lost if they’re not on their cells.

Expedia.com's recently conducted vacation survey suggests Americans return more than $21 billion in unused vacation hours per year. Not surprisingly, survey respondents also said they are taking less time away from work and feeling more guilt when they do take time off.

Job-stress induced illness is estimated to cost US businesses $150 billion a year.

In our executive coaching, I see the toll this takes every day. One of the assessments we use, the CPI 260™, has a measure of “resilience.” People with low scores on the resilience factor show signs of fatigue and burnout and, often, the low optimisim and energy that can accompany fatigue and burnout. Low resilience tends to be a strong indicator of potential “career derailment.” In other words, a person with low resilience is at great professional risk.

A few years ago, we saw relatively few low resilience scores. Of late, in several groups, fully 25% of the participants had dangerously low resilience scores. Ouch!

What frightens me about all this even more than the health consequences are the costs in creativity and the plain-old ability to think. If we have trained ourselves to fill every minute with activity, how can we dedicate the time to analyze a thorny, complex issue? If it’s not just OK, but even highly desirable, to be interruptible at any moment, how can we sustain thought long enough to find an elegant solution to a messy problem? If the privacy of our own thoughts is such a scary, uncomfortable—or, God forbid, barren!—place to be, how can we create the unimaginable new invention?

THAT’s what frightens me most for the long-term sustainability of our organizational and economic vitality. THAT’s the worm with the highest potential to eat away our genius. Maybe not today or tomorrow—but extrapolate five, 10 or 15 years from now.

So, what’s to do about it?

No, I don’t think the solution is another round of stress management classes or in-house yoga. Those things are fine, but they’re not the answer.

The answer lies in each one of us—but especially those of us who are in positions of responsibility in organizations—cultivating our own ability to think and to value the power of recharging our batteries and regenerating our energies.

This requires a discipline that goes far beyond traditional time management; it requires the mental discipline to assess accurately what really does deserve our time and attention. For most of us, when we’re brutally honest with ourselves, we have to admit that much of what currently consumes time and attention falls short of being worthy of that time and attention. We do it, because we like it—even if we tell ourselves we don’t.

The other side of the solution to the problem of the “e-leash” lies in each of us who are in a position to do so promoting and rewarding the value of thought, balance, and resilience in the organizations we lead.

Easy to say—not easy to do when the deadlines and crises are screaming.