On Work

A working life should be the pursuit of effectiveness before efficiency.

The work we do is just one element of what makes up a good life. If the question is, how can we have a good life, the answer should be, what are the constituent parts?

If we say that a good life could be made up of, but not limited to making things and relationships. Whether we are an employee, student or business founder, we all have a chance to be making something. A lot of people would call it their job. I call my job the vehicle that is enabling me to make the thing I want to leave on this earth.

Whether we have these two focuses for our lives, making things and relationships, or whether there are others, it is more effective to divide time cleanly between them than to mix the two together.

To borrow an analogy from manufacturing, jobs in a factory can either be massed produced, output in one large batch, or completed in smaller, faster batches. If, out of every working session two metrics are taken, progress and learning, then the smaller the batch size, the more potential that learning has to influence the next working session.

My model is thus; work in short, intense periods, but back to back. Take four days at a time, split them up into half days and at the end of each half day review your progress. Take what you have learnt from the session and directly apply it to the next session.

Don’t mix relationship with work. Environment is everything.