All Work and No Play Makes Jane a Permanent Middle Manager

I just read Seth Godin’s manifesto “Do Less.” I must admit, the title intrigued me. I’ve made it my business throughout my life to do more than was required. Just imagine how pissed off I was to learn that doing more than your share often leads to nothing more than disillusionment and deep, subconscious fatigue. People like me don’t realize how tired they are.

I’m from the Midwest; a background that has provided me with a great excuse for my outrageously stupid work ethic. I’ve always been the person who says: “Shucks, guess I’ll do that data entry.” “Sure, just leave it on my desk and I’ll get to it next.” Or, “That’s OK, I’ll just finish it on Saturday.”

My delegation skills were non-existent. I once hired an assistant who balked at the things I asked her to do; I figured I must have asked her to do tasks that were not appropriate, so I did them myself. She, on the other hand, got to go on research trips and to create fun new features for our publication. When I asked her what she thought she should be doing she told me, whatever would get her on the path to a promotion (she’d been with the company for three weeks).

A co-worker took me to the side and said, not-so-subtly, “That chick is running rampant over you. You really need to put her in her place.”

I realized that I had been overcompensating for jobs that I’d had where I vowed never to be an uncompassionate, overbearing boss. I also realized that I didn’t know how NOT to slice and dice everything that was thrown at me like a human Cuisinart. Everything—from the piddliest of return calls to career-defining business proposals--were processed, no questions asked. The painful truth was that I was giving my assistant my job. At least she knew what she wanted to get from the work she put in. I only knew that the work—good, bad, or senseless—would get done.

Ultimately you want to do work that you don’t consider work; that you don’t feel like a drone doing. I argued that I must love my work because I don’t mind doing it. But really, I didn’t know what I loved, and being busy made me not mind not knowing. And the more I got paid to do the work, the easier it was to convince myself that I loved it.

This was the case in other areas of my life as well. Take relationships: If you don’t know what you want you end up in shallow, unfulfilling situations. I won’t name names. And those people who are always in good relationships? They aren’t necessarily better looking, smarter, or more charismatic than you—they just know what they want and remove all deviant schmoes from the running.

What Godin is saying in his essay is not to work less, but to work smarter. Don’t do it just to stay busy, or you’ll take up the intellectual and creative energy you need to do what you really love. Even if it means turning down money. Even if it means staying home on Friday night and watching Monk all by yourself. You’ll train your clients, your lovers, anyone in your life what you are willing to do, what you are worth.

Sold yet? If so, I guess this begs the question, where does one start? Or, in cases like mine, where does one stop? That is best left for another blog. I really need to think about this one. And when I do, I will call it, "How to Say No".