No, I haven’t resolved to reveal my true identity after spending my nights beating bad behaving Gothamites into red pulps. I was beating myself to work harder, not smarter, on all kind of tasks, from essential ones to trivialities. If you want to know what I looked like, take a look at this nice picture by Luca Rossini:

 

So, what does it mean actually to “be the Batman”? Here’s a quick checklist of symptoms that you are transforming into Batsy:

  1. You work long and hard under the cover of shadows
  2. The fact that probably no-one will actually benefit from your long watches, but that you were out there, protecting and caring about other people (colleagues and customers, in your case) makes you feel good
  3. You think you work better by yourself (no, Robin does not count!)
  4. You know that if somebody ever finds out what you do, they will think that you are, to say the least, delusional, and set on a path that will ensure your self-destruction, sooner or later.

If you checked out 3 or 4 items, maybe it’s time to make a change. I won’t go into the many reasons that compelled me to a shift of habits, neither I’ll try to count scientific studies, social reasons, physiological advantages and the likes related to working the correct amount of time. What I can tell is that, with a few minor tweaks on my habits, I was able to reduce the amount of work and stress that goes with my profession, and now my evenings are spent on taking care of my family and of some hobbies that were lagging behind my schedule. Hey, now that I think about it, I even started a blog as a side result! My productivity per hour increased, the creative part of my brain began to tingle again and I’m no more draining energies from myself without a good reason.

The next posts will outline the most important changes that I made and the strategies employed: please stay tuned, post your story in the comments below and tell us what you’d like to read about in the future.

If you are not interested, please take your bat-schedule out of this place, go work the bat-crap out of yourself during your bat-nights in front of your bat-computer, and come back when you come to your bat-senses again!

Take care.

P.s. Let’s play a little game: I offer a symbolic prize to the first person to get the place where this slightly modified quote comes from:

Batman: Alfred, get the Batwing ready. Productivity is under attack.
Alfred Pennyworth: By whom?
Batman: By me.