Do you sleep with your smartphone? Are you constantly “catching up” on work on the weekends? Do you feel overworked, almost always?

Today work/life balance author and speaker Joe Robinson contributed an op-ed on the Huffington Post in reaction to the latest employment stats released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — stats that show that 91% of employed people in the US are often doing the jobs of multiple people.

In addition to this article, GigaOM (known for their analysis) is featuring an op-ed today by their writer Stacey Higginbotham centered on recent remarks by the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg. It describes how long expected hours mean workers are placing the beliefs and values of the company higher up as a determining factor in selecting their job — almost like choosing a family. This is something that has arguably been happening for years in the formation and growth of startups, and which now may be seeping into the more mainstream professional world as the boundaries between work and life become more heavily blurred.

HuffPost Op-Ed

While employers may feel more work is getting done for less wages, Robinson’s op-ed focuses on how chronic long hours can actually be counter-productive. He suggests they have a negative effect on the core element of what drives the American economy — knowledge, and as Robinson describes, “a fresh and energized brain.”

Overwhelmed. Stressed. Burnt out. And yet for many, given the recession, many feel lucky to even have a job — and guilty to speak up. “Any engineer can tell you: We have structural limits. Even the strongest materials pull apart when subjected to the right amount of force and load,” explained Robinson. “American workers are being pulled apart, because we’re not making adjustments to the increased load and pace coming down on us.”

Japan has a word for all of it, “karoshi” — death by overwork.

Robinson went on to cite some stats that reflect how this increased load is prime to crash down on us:

• Steady workweeks of more than 51 hours triple the risk of hypertension (University of California, Irvine study)
• People who work more than 11 or 12 hours a day are 60% more likely to have coronary incidents — from heart attacks to angina (stress triggers the release of hormones that contribute to artery clogging) — and are more apt to have sleep problems and depression (British study)

Robinson’s research suggests that these chronic long hours not only trigger health problems, they also trigger work as being the key to (and for many young people, only driver of) feelings of self-worth and success. “We’re a young land, we move around a lot and wind up defining ourselves by our jobs. Performance becomes the sole source of identity and value. Step away from it, and you have no value. You hear the nag in your head bellowing, “Get busy” — even if you’re at home on a Sunday morning.”

And Robinson believes this is all self-inflicted, and that you can gain control over it yourself. His research shows the best predictor of personal satisfaction is satisfaction with what’s happening outside the workplace. “The more active leisure life you have, the higher your life satisfaction … Recreational activities build mastery and risk-taking and connect us with our true aspirations and selves like nothing else. That creates lasting gratification, since these pursuits pump us up with internal satisfaction, not the mercurial approval of others.”

He, backed by a Harvard study, believes that boundaries between work and life are the key tool for productivity, success and a happy and healthy life.

You can read the full op-ed here on the HuffPost.

GigaOM Op-Ed

But what about startups? Long hours to meet collective goals is the norm, and because of this, you end up considering your colleagues more like family than just colleagues. And they support you through these long hours like a family, and not a middle manager.

GigaOM’s op-ed examines how this startup phenomenon may point to the future of work itself. The op-ed speaks to a New Yorker article with Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, suggesting that professionals are now approaching jobs in the mindset of joining a family.

“The professional class today doesn’t join a company with a nine-to-five work ethic anymore,” explains Higginbotham. “They are also joining a group of people that they will spend long hours with either at the office or online. They’re entering a relationship with these people, so those people better mesh with their values and ideals.”

While the op-ed suggests that for sure the economic climate has made many Americans more entrepreneurial, it has also resulted in people placing importance on being driven by their own goals first — and that of the company second. Many, particularly Millenials, want to work at companies where there is dedication to help them meet those personal goals as much as the potential employee is dedicated to meeting the company’s goals.

This is a shift in how people approach and choose new jobs, and Higginbotham suggests companies should work with the shift and not against it:

“Just like in families, where there is an ethos around everyone pitching in and working toward a common goal, a company needs to have people who are all dedicated toward a company goal. … At GigaOM, it’s delivering good analysis on major stories. We’re all pulling for the same thing, together. This also means people are more willing to work longer or odd hours when needed, because they believe they’ll get time off when they need it. Employees have a loyalty to the company that is rewarded with loyalty back to the employee.”

She leaves her readers with, “I can’t imagine going back to some nine-to-five existence where my projects and priorities are dictated by others instead of something I care deeply about.”

You can read the full op-ed here on GigaOM.

Which camp do you fall in? Would you like greater boundaries, or are you in line with a shift to the workplace becoming more like family? Let us know in the comments.