At first the comments seemed curious coming from Huffington, who leads her health and wellness company Thrive Global and once described herself as “a sleep evangelist,” penning a 2016 book about the benefits of bedtime following a scary experience where she fainted from sleep exhaustion. But in an email interview with Moneywise, Huffington clarified and expanded on her comments about interesting jobs and finishing work before bed.
“My point is that anybody with an interesting job needs to be comfortable with incompletions,” she explained. “That means realizing that they will never be able to finish everything they’re supposed to do before they go to sleep.”
As such, she advised that “instead of powering through exhaustion, they can make sure they can handle the most urgent and important things and not shortchange their sleep and recharging.”
Sleep may be priceless — but can you afford it?
Huffington, meanwhile, walks the walk. Rather than chasing a perfectly cleared to-do list, she also prioritizes “completing the most important and urgent things, to be comfortable with all the things I have not completed knowing that by giving myself enough time to recharge, I’ll be the most productive and creative version of myself the next day.”
And given her track record as an entrepreneur and author (including ranking among the world’s most influential and powerful people) her approach is clearly working.
That said, for many Americans, taking time to recharge isn’t always rewarded, or even possible.
A 2024 report from the Federal Reserve of St. Louis shows that working more hours often correlates with higher overall earnings. In fact, the Fed study found that working extra hours accounts for as much as 30% of the variation in earnings between those who put in more time and those who work less.
A 2022 study by the World Economic Forum garnered similar results, reporting that “America’s top 10% of earners work an average of 4.4 hours more each week than those in the bottom 10%” — even when accounting for “overtime, other jobs, or side gigs.”
Fast forward, however, to 2026 and the ongoing affordability crisis that’s forced almost a third of Americans to adopt a side hustle to keep them financially afloat. Not only does working more hours reduce rest and recharging time, but 67% of Americans say they “worry more about running out of money than death.”
“There are a lot of people struggling to make ends meet with few choices,” Huffington acknowledged, adding that, in her earlier interview about “interesting jobs,” she “wasn’t covering everything … but addressing the idea that burning out is the price we have to pay for success.”
