The Time Trap: Why Working More Is Making You Less Productive

The Time Trap: Why Working More Is Making You Less Productive

From Business Growth Lab by Samantha Riley

May 25, 2026 · 45 min · Episode 690

About this episode

Samantha Riley discusses how working longer hours does not equate to increased productivity and emphasizes the importance of structure in business.

I speak to business owners every week who tell me they're working crazy hours. Someone told me recently they were working 16-hour days. They're exhausted, they're burnt out, and they're completely convinced that if they just had more time, everything would finally fall into place. But here's what I know after scaling multiple businesses myself and watching hundreds of business owners do the same. This isn't a time problem, it's a structure problem, and no amount of extra hours was ever going to fix it. This episode follows on from last week, where Leon and I unpacked the five stages of business, and today we're going deeper into something that trips up almost everyone in Stage Three, the Constraint Stage, and it's not what most people expect. So if something in here makes you want to push back, I hear you. I had the exact same reaction when someone said this to me, and I'll be honest, it wasn't pretty. But it was that moment, that discomfort, that changed everything in my business and then in my life. And that's exactly what I want for you too, because the goal was never to build a business that consumes your life. It was always to build one that funds it. So let's talk about…

People in this episode

Host: Samantha Riley

Topics covered

  • productivity
  • business structure
  • work-life balance
  • burnout
  • time management
  • entrepreneurship

Keywords

  • productivity
  • burnout
  • business structure
  • time management
  • entrepreneurship
  • work-life balance
  • constraint stage

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