I am proposing a new category for extreme sports : Competitive Overwork.

The Beginner Level of Competitive Overwork is Never Having Time. At this level points are awarded for:

• Using the toilet once in a twelve-hour period
• Skipping meals
• Crumbs in your keyboard
• Accumulating a stack of coffee sleeves to be recycled

At the Intermediate Level , Chronic Emergency, points are awarded for:

• Insomnia (proof must be provided through middle-of-the-night, time stamped emails)
• Recitations of the excess amounts of work accompany every overdue document and email
• Scheduling meetings six weeks out
• Reducing words like “Thanks” and “Please” to Thx and Pls to save time

Advanced, also known as “I Am the Center of the Universe”, is of course more stringent and usually, but not always, requires an executive title. Points are awarded at this level mainly for making someone else do your work as evidenced by:

• Telling others to resend documents, information or other details because you are too busy to look for them
• Telling others to forward, print or mail things that would take the same amount of time as telling someone else to do it
• Scheduling meetings six weeks out and then canceling an hour before
• Missing/ignoring major holidays, birthdays, the personal accomplishments etc. of your staff, subordinates and/or family members

This is only an outline of course. The game needs goals, rules, penalties, challenges and a way to win. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to figure this all out at the moment. Happy to delegate if anyone cares to step up.