Reclaiming your life
The web model may give a glimpse of a less overloaded way of life that lets people take charge of their time while still making a decent living and a real contribution to society. Take Ted Husted, a 46-year-old freelance software consultant who lives in a Rochester [N.Y.] suburb. These days he consults 32 hours a week, remotely, for the Oklahoma Environmental Quality Dept., down from 40 as recently as this summer. But he also spends 10 to 15 hours a week as a major contributor to the Apache open-source software project.

Now he has time on weekends to watch his kids play sports. He goes out to lunch with his wife, Barb, every Monday. And he even has time left over to contain the fast-growing maple trees on his corner lot. Meanwhile, his work on the open-source project garners him visibility and respect among his peers. "I think I can keep this pace up indefinitely," says Husted. "But I have to have discipline about it. Now I make sure there's at least one day when I don't even touch a keyboard."

Few people will ever make a living as a blogger or a contributor to an open-source software project. But there is pressure to find new ways of organizing work, from both corporations and overworked individuals. "In terms of hours, I keep thinking we're on the verge of a backlash," says Babson's Davenport.

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Try telling that to Ken Middleton, director of convention sales for Houston's Convention & Visitors Bureau. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he has been putting in grueling 70-hour weeks hustling to find space for meetings that had been scheduled for New Orleans. Even in normal times, though, he works 55 hours a week, including four to six hours on weekends. Does he feel overworked? "Absolutely -- but doesn't everyone? My wife says I need to get a hobby and stick to it. There isn't time for that right now." Who has even a moment for a backlash?

By Michael Mandel, with Steve Hamm in New York, Carol Matlack in Paris, Christopher Farrell in St. Paul, Minn., and Ann Therese Palmer in Chicago.

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