Outcomes Over Hours: How to Win the Job Without Losing Your Life

SUMMARY: Layoffs and 70-hour workweeks are on the rise—but Excel Data Plumbers offer a smarter alternative. They deliver much more value in much less time by shifting the focus from effort to outcomes. Their Golden Portfolio, built with public data, proves their skills. Using an all-Excel strategy and support from ChatGPT, they produce insights, automate workflows, and create leverage—without burning out. Here’s an introduction to the new strategy.

In this job market, you don’t get to choose between work and life. You choose work—if you can find it—and hope to squeeze life into the gaps.

That’s the impression we get—for Excel users and their managers—from four recent articles in well-known business publications.

1. In “AI Is Blurring the Lines Between Managers and Associates,” in the July-August 2025 issue of the Harvard Business Review, a KPMG Partner explains, “We are beginning to define someone’s contribution by their skill set, by the value they create, and less so by their role…which is blurring the lines between middle manager and associate tasks.”
   
   
2. In “How AI Is Redefining Managerial Roles” at HBR .com, we learn that Harvard researchers “don’t suggest that companies will eliminate middle managers altogether, but they do believe AI will allow firms to reduce the number of people in these roles.”
   
   
3. In June 2025, the Wall Street Journal announced that “The Biggest Companies Across America Are Cutting Their Workforces.” Specifically, they wrote, “U.S. public companies have reduced their white-collar workforces by a collective 3.5% over the past three years, according to employment data-provider Live Data Technologies. Over the past decade, one in five companies in the S&P 500 have shrunk.”
   
   
4. A month later, the Journal highlighted a new hiring trend in “Think Work-Life Balance Is Overrated? You’re Hired!” Many employers, they wrote, are beginning to demand 60- to 70-hour workweeks.

Excel users and their managers could well be near the top of the downsize or work-longer-hours list. In It’s Just Math—Scutwork’s High Opportunity Cost, I show a significant reason why. I show that companies are needlessly paying $5K to $15K per month per employee for Excel scutwork that’s worth nothing.

And senior managers are finally waking up to the mind-numbing cost of that low productivity.

So if you’re a middle manager or an Excel user who values work-life balance and wants to work remotely, you might think you’d be out of the running for a new job.

Not necessarily.

But you can’t apply like everyone else. You’ll need to shift the conversation—from time and presence to value and outcomes. And with the Excel Data Plumbing Strategy, you’ll have the tools to do it.

Start With a Strategic Reframe

You’ll begin by changing how the hiring manager sees the situation.

Most companies still associate long hours with commitment and productivity. But you’ll show them something better: that you can produce the same—or better—results with significantly fewer hours and no commute.

You might say:

“I understand this role usually involves long, onsite hours. But the value I deliver doesn’t depend on how many hours I log or where I sit—it comes from outcomes. I use an Excel strategy that lets me automate 80% to 95% of the Excel work most teams do manually. That frees me up to focus on analysis, forecasting, insight generation, and decision support.”

That one shift will:

• Acknowledge their expectations without pushing back
• Introduce your edge as an alternative, not a challenge
• Focus on business value, not lifestyle preference

And it will set you up to explain what makes you different.

You’ll Position Yourself as a Strategic Operator

Most hiring managers think in roles and routines. Excel work is often seen as grunt work that requires many long hours.

But if you were an Excel Data Plumber, you wouldn’t think that way. You’d think in systems, flows, and strategy.

You might say:

“I don’t just build reports, analyses, forecasts, and so on. I build reflows, which are their automated versions that update with one command, without using VBA. I can take a reporting process that usually takes 10 hours a week and reduce it to 15 minutes. That doesn’t just save time—it eliminates errors, frees up staff, and gives your managers faster, more reliable insights.”

You’d position yourself as someone who multiplies what others can do—by eliminating scutwork, accelerating analysis, and delivering insights that managers can act on before competitors do.

You’d Show the Goods—With a Golden Portfolio

You wouldn’t need to convince them with words. You could show them, with your Golden Portfolio. This is a well-targeted portfolio of your best Excel work, which uses public business and economic data—not company-private data.

Your portfolio might show comparative financial statements between two competitors, trends in key indicators for your industry, trends in the revenues of competitive companies during key economic conditions, and so on.

And then, with the help of AI, you could explain your findings clearly.

You’d prove your private capabilities by using public data to demonstrate that you know how to build adaptable, high-impact Excel work that you can update with one command.

You’d Translate Hours Saved into Business Results

You wouldn’t be trying to work less. You’d be trying to work smarter—and focus on the work that really matters.

You might say:

“According to an Accenture survey of CFOs, FP&A teams spend 15% of their time on brainwork and 85% on scutwork. So in a 40-hour week, you’d get just six hours of brainwork from them. And if your Excel users worked an 80-hour week, you’d get 12 hours of brainwork from them—assuming their brain is still working after their first 70-hour workweek.

“But I’ve eliminated almost all of that scutwork. If you hire me for a 40-hour week, in half that time I can give you what two or three others can give you in 80-hour weeks. And I could spend the rest of my 40 hours improving forecasts, spotting trends, and helping managers make better decisions.

“And also, I’d stick around longer.

“Nearly every Excel user you hire for 60 to 80 hours a week—plus commuting time—will continue looking for a job with better working conditions. In fact, if YOU are being paid for a 40-hour week, and you’re expected to work 60 to 80 hours a week, I’m sure that you’re looking for a different job, as well.”

In short: you offer much greater value with a better Excel strategy and a brain that’s not burned out.

You’d End with a Vision

You wouldn’t just ask for flexibility. You’d show them what they’d get in return.

“I’m not trying to avoid hard work. I’m trying to avoid waste—wasted time, wasted energy, and wasted opportunities. With the Excel Data Plumbing Strategy, help from ChatGPT, and a 15-foot commute, I can work from home and still give you faster results, fewer errors, and higher-value insights. That’s how I work best—and that’s how I can give you my best.”

You won’t win over every employer. But the ones who get it? They’ll see that you’re not just applying for a job—you’re offering a smarter way to work. And you’ll have the proof to back it up.

To get started on your journey, join the EDP Institute today.