Paige McPheely Argues Overwork Is a Systemic Problem in New Handbook
In Built to Breathe, former executive assistant company CEO Paige McPheely draws on her own experience to argue that the American work system encourages unsustainable workloads and offers a framework for avoiding burnout.
Paige McPheely, who cofounded the executive assistant company Base in 2013 and ran it as chief executive for more than a decade, has written a handbook for professionals she describes as chronically exhausted. In Built to Breathe, she argues that the way Americans work is an inherited system that has operated largely unquestioned for more than two centuries, and that high-achieving leaders can keep their positions without burning out if they change how they take on tasks.
McPheely writes from personal experience. The business grew well beyond her early expectations, but she struggled to balance rising work demands with raising her three children alongside her husband. She repeatedly told herself that the overloaded schedule was only a season, yet the season never seemed to end. The balance she sought, she writes, was always in sight but never truly within reach.
The book begins with the cultural roots of overwork. While the Protestant work ethic has encouraged an inventive and determined approach to labour, McPheely argues that it has also taught Americans to see work as something more than an economic exchange. She admits that she long believed hard work signalled virtue and strength of character. As a result, she took on unmanageable workloads not only for the good of her company but because she felt that avoiding work would reflect poorly on who she was as both a chief executive and a person.
The second part of the book offers a theoretical framework that compares work to the respiratory cycle. Like breathing, work should follow a rhythm in which people take in tasks and then experience the relief of completing them or releasing them. Too many workers, she contends, remain stuck in the inhale phase, continually taking in more without letting anything go. Her remedy is to either hold one's breath, concentrating full attention on the most important tasks, or exhale by recognising when something is finished or no longer best served by one's involvement.
The final section sets out a systematic approach to deciding what work to accept. It is built around five principles, including identifying trusted support, maintaining clear rhythms, fostering intentional systems and making thoughtful use of technology. The book closes with what it calls Practical Tools for the Exhale, including self-assessments to determine whether an unexpected problem is catastrophic and needs immediate attention or can wait, advice on auditing a personal calendar, and prompts for reflection.
Blending anecdotes from McPheely's career as a high-stakes business leader with practical advice, the volume runs to less than 200 pages and is illustrated with diagrams and charts. Its concise, accessible style is aimed at overstretched professionals, and its central argument is that no single person should carry more work than they can sustain.
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