The Infinity Workday
Freedom or Fatigue?
It is 9 pm on a Tuesday. A notification pings. It is an email from your manager with the subject line, “Just a quick thought...”
Or perhaps it is the 7 am Slack message. Or the quick check-in while you are making dinner.
This is the “Infinity Workday”. It is not a formal policy, but a creeping reality for many. The neat, tidy box of the 9-to-5 has sprung a leak, and work is seeping into every waking hour.
The 9-to-5 is a relic of an industrial era, a time when productivity was tethered to a machine or when customers only interacted during set business hours. Today, our laptops, smartphones, and global teams mean our work is always with us, accessible from anywhere, at any time.
This presents us with a profound choice. Is this the flexible, empowered future of work we were promised? Or is it just a fast road to burnout?
For leaders, this is one of the most critical tensions we must manage. The Infinity Workday is not about hours; it is about a mindset and a culture.
When ‘Flexibility’ Becomes a Trap
If we handle this carelessly, the Infinity Workday is a recipe for overwork. Burnout rates are already soaring. When you make work “infinite,” you risk amplifying this trend, even with the best intentions.
I once coached a middle manager who was consistently praised by his bosses for his “responsiveness”. But he was a wreck. He was clearing emails at midnight and would apologise profusely if he was offline for even an hour. The physical toll was adding up: migraines, insomnia, and a deeply strained family life. The “infinity” culture had convinced him that his survival depended on being always available.
This culture also creates an “illusion of productivity”. I have seen people who are technically online for 12 or 14 hours a day. Yet, their real breakthroughs, their valuable, deep work, happen in just one or two focused hours. The Infinity Workday stretches the hours but often shrinks the effectiveness.
And then there is the relational cost. We have all seen it: the person at a family dinner who is “physically present but mentally away,” sneakily scrolling work chats under the table. Over time, these relationships fracture, and a quiet resentment for the employer begins to build. Organisations may call this “commitment,” but in truth, they are draining their people of creativity, energy, and long-term loyalty.
The Real Driver Is Not the Tech, It Is the Culture
It is easy to blame the technology, but the true driver of a toxic Infinity Workday is the culture. It is not the written policies but the unspoken cues that do the damage.
We all know the classic example: the manager who sends an email at 9 pm and says, “Just because I sent this, doesn’t mean I expect a reply”. This sounds harmless, even considerate. But power dynamics change how messages are received.
The manager sees it as their own personal flexibility. The team member sees it as a subtle demand, a test of their commitment. It creates anxiety and the very “always on” culture the manager claims to oppose.
Another invisible pressure is the simple fear of missing out (FOMO). People log back on at night, not because they love the work, but because they are worried things will move ahead without them. “What if I miss that key decision? What if I am left out of the loop?” That anxiety, not passion, is what fuels the constant tethering.
A Better Model: What We Can Learn from Freelancers
But infinity does not have to mean burnout. There is a whole community that has been living this way for years: freelancers, consultants, and entrepreneurs. And for many, it works.
Why? They operate on three key principles that most corporate cultures have failed to adopt.
True Ownership: A freelancer’s calendar is their own. They might work late, but they also might take a two-hour break mid-morning to go to the gym. Their time truly belongs to them, not to an employer’s schedule.
A Radical Focus on Outcomes: A consultant I once partnered with put it perfectly: “No one ever asks me how long it took. They only ask, ‘Has it solved the problem?’” In this model, hours dissolve. Outcomes are all that matter.
Intentional Rest: This is the most important part. Freelancers actively design their rest. They block out personal time. They might work in intense crunches, but they follow it with intentional recovery gaps. A friend of mine will pull 12-hour days for a week to hit a deadline, but will then take the next three days off, completely guilt-free. In traditional organisations, we have adopted the “crunch” but forgotten the “recover”.
The lesson is clear: infinity works only when ownership, an outcome-focus, and built-in safeguards for rest are all present.
How to Lead in the Infinity Workday
We cannot put the genie back in the bottle. The Infinity Workday is here. The challenge for leaders is to build a culture that embraces its freedom without falling into its traps.
It starts with you. Your behaviour is the message.
Use “Delay Send.” If you work at 10 pm because it suits your rhythm, fine. But schedule the email to send at 8:30 am. Do not impose your flexibility on your team.
Be Explicit. If you absolutely must send a late-night message, make your intent clear. “This is just my working pattern. No response is needed until working hours”. This clarity helps counteract anxiety.
Normalise Rest. Actively celebrate when people are offline. Talk about your own time off. Value the balance, not just the hustle.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Hours. Ask “What did you achieve?” not “How long were you online?” Measure the value delivered, not the time spent.
For the wider organisation, the most important rule is this: Replace, Don’t Layer.
You cannot simply bolt an “infinite” expectation of availability on top of the traditional 9-to-5 structure. That is not flexibility; it is exploitation. It is just two jobs for the price of one.
To make this work, you must replace the old 9-to-5 orthodoxy with a new one built on trust and results. This means training your middle managers - the ones who often cling to “visibility” as a measure of work - in outcome-based leadership. It means creating real guardrails, like “No-Meeting Wednesdays” or policies that actively protect time off.
The Infinity Workday is not good or bad by default. It is a choice. It can be a culture of trust, autonomy, and empowerment, or it can be one of endless expectations and burnout.
That choice rests squarely with us.
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