Work
| The other day, I found my husband reading a railway newspaper (yes, they do exist) on our couch. Surrounded by sofa cushions thrown all over the place by our lovely kids, the floor covered in bread crumbs from the last meal, dishes piling up in the sink. It was one of the rare moments the kids happened to play by themselves without killing each other. One of those precious moments… and he simply sat there, reading his newspaper. I felt flashes of rage bursting up my throat. How does he dare sitting there in the middle of this mess? Could he be any more selfish to not use this time to take on some chores? Does he even see all the work? Pissed off, I started cleaning the table, sinking deeper and deeper into my anger. With the last bit of self-control I reminded myself of my negotiation class and started asking myself: What do I actually want? I want him to see all the work piling up. I want him to support me with all the chores. I want him to not waste time and to clean up the house right now. But as always, our strongest reactions to other people are also clues pointing us towards some unresolved issues or longing inside ourselves. In this case, my anger was also telling me: I want what he has. I want to sit and read, too. I want to take a break. And I want to feel good about it – despite everything else on my to-do list. I have the hardest time taking breaks. I usually power through my few workdays without ever looking up from my screen. At home, I feel like Sisyphos, fighting mountains of toys, dust bunnies and laundry, trying to make the floor visible again each and every night. Thinking about the next meals. Making the beds. It’s never ending. It’s the kind of work that will only be noticed when we stop doing it. When we stop chasing it. It’s called mental load, it’s invisible work. Let’s talk about what happens when work becomes invisible, when we and others are no longer aware of what the burden we are carrying. Here are a couple of examples of what invisible work looks like at home: – planning birthday parties for the kids, including baking cakes for daycare, but always keeping in mind any kind of allergies or preferences the other kids might have – organizing gifts for relatives weeks in advance – keeping track of all family appointments – dragging stuff back to the room where it belongs – thinking about what to cook day in and day out – packing for the next trip (and even worse: unpacking everything once you are back home) – you name it… It’s like a never-ending ticker running in the back of your head. I am quite sure that especially most women in my audience can very much relate to this. I really recommend listening to Glennon Doyle’s latest podcast episode on overwhelm. It resonated sooo much with me. But let’s go back to Tobias sitting on the couch. Was he actually procrastinating? Was he working? He was reading a rail-related magazine after all, probably relevant to his work as railway engineer on some level. Can this be considered work? Where does work actually end? When I am reading my Linkedin feed, am I still working? If I am listening to a podcast from a fellow product person, does this count as work Chatting with a co-worker at the coffee machine about your weekend, is this still work? Isn’t it deepening your relationship with your teammate leading to more resilience and trust in your next project? When I am meeting new people at a co-working space, talking to them about our jobs, is this considered work? And to take it one step further: at night, when we are sleeping, isn’t this one of the most important pre-requisites for our work the next day? When we are on vacation, aren’t we rewiring our brains to digest all the inputs from the past couple of weeks? How often are you coming up with new work-related ideas on a run or in the shower? Independently from whether you are working from home these days, isn’t it time to re-think what work actually looks like, where it takes place? Most of our mental models about work are rooted in the industrial revolution, belong to a world where work was mostly monotonous and very much defined and valued by the input the workers were investing: exchanging time for money. Input was directly related to output in the factories. Until today, many people still define themselves by how many hours they work and there is an unwritten code in many workplaces that values employees who are working late hours, pulling all-nighters or replying to messages on the weekends. I once had a colleague who would schedule some of her emails to be sent out around 10 p.m. to her boss to impress him with her work ethic. And the sad thing is: it seemed to work. Luckily, more and more companies understand that this type of rhythm is not sustainable. Many have to learn it the hard way, watching their employees walk right into a burnout. Quite a few organizations have started to shift their attention from output to outcome. We are now talking about the impact of our worktime. But this also forces managers to start defining which outcomes they are actually looking for, to design cascading goals for the entire organization that are not conflicting with each other. It’s a tough job and not everyone is equipped to do it. It’s much easier to simply count the hours someone is sitting at their desk… I know a lot of companies that introduced OKRs (Objectives and Key Results, a goal-setting system used by Google and many other big companies these days) to become more outcome-driven. And although this tool can do a lot of harm if it is not used in a smart and thoughtful way, I believe that it can be very helpful to start the right conversations in an organization. In fact, I started using it at home with my husband about 18 months ago to stay focused on what matters in our personal life for over a year now. One of our OKRs for Q2 was called «Feierabend» (closing time). It’s our way to prevent us from hiding behind our laptops or drowning in chores until late at night. It actually asks us to go sit on the couch and simply hang out with each other for a while – but to do it without further ado once the kids are in bed. It’s absurd, isn’t it? We need to force ourselves to take a break. Or rather grant ourselves permission to do so. But how are our kids supposed to learn that it is ok to relax, to not be productive and efficient for once when they never see us hanging out? Our kids are going to copy what we do, not what we say. So do our employees. If you wish for them to not be trapped in an endless hamsterwheel of work, showing them how to take breaks is the most effective way to provide them with an alternative. This is why my new Feierabend break at home will start happening in the middle of the day, right after lunch, not just in the evening. To officially celebrate the most important and most invisible part of work: rest. I hope you enjoy a lovely break from everything today Tanja This text appeared in my thought-letter Tanja’s Butterflies (August Edition 2021 – Part 1). In case you are interested in future editions, feel free to sign up here. |
