Reinvent your relationship with work
Work used to be a place.
It used to be a place our parents went to. They would say “I’m going to work!”. They didn’t mean, “I am going to do some work now”. They meant, “I am picking up my bag, my keys, leaving the house and driving to work” (a place).
Once at the office, oftentimes work did happen there. Other times it didn’t. People chatted, ate, partied, planned, shopped online, sighed, daydreamed. Nonetheless, they were “at work”, which used to be a place, intricately and inseparably intertwined with the idea of work.
Not anymore.
For some of us in the “future of work movement”, for those of us who have been building businesses, teams and projects working with other people a couple of continents away, the concept of work has been disconnected from the idea of location for a while now.
My business partner and I have never lived on the same continent, let alone country or city (but we’ve been building businesses together for almost a decade now). My previous business partner and I lived 4 countries and 3000 km apart. My team is currently spread across 5 different countries and serves clients across min. 15 countries at any given time.
The pandemic revealed these possibilities to everyone else, too, and prompted all of us to ask deeper questions. Paradoxically. Because who would’ve thought a public health crisis that forced people to stay at home for months on end would end up enticing people to travel and work from anywhere, and ‘taste freedom’ like never before?
There is, of course, still a lot of unlearning to do to disconnect location and time from contribution, motivation, and value. The culture of presenteeism (being physically present at work to look dedicated, no matter how unproductive - like that time I spent 3,5h getting to and back from work at my office in London while feeling unwell and got absolutely nothing done for the day) is an entrenched mindset that will take a while to shift.
More recently, digital presenteeism: heaps of companies, including otherwise considered progressive startups, have all sorts of digital surveillance in place tracking the activities of their employees to the detriment of their mental health.
And then, of course, not everyone can work remotely all the time (although even surgeons are starting to do it now). But that’s not the point.
The point is: work isn’t a place anymore.
And that means, it is now:
An activity.
An experience.
A mode. #workmode
A dance towards meaning and purpose, if you will.
A contribution towards a project, team, goal, or business.
Yet, this isn’t even a post about where we work from, it’s about something deeper and more meaningful:
Work is up for reinvention.
For defining and re-shaping. For reimagining.
We’re at a pivotal moment. For the first time in human history, you have the opportunity to define what that means for you: what role it plays, should play and will play in your life.
These days, AI is fully unravelling in our lives and transforming them in ways that are still hard to accurately predict. As we hand over more of the menial tasks to algorithms and automation, instead of being scared of it “stealing our jobs”, this seems like a perfect time to see it as a doorway. An invitation to reinvent our relationship with work and step into a tailor-made future.
If you’d like to engage in this reflection, here are a few questions that might help:
What does work mean for you? What role do you want it to play in your life? Simply pay the bills? Allow you to create and express yourself? Offer you belonging and contribution to something bigger than your immediate practical needs?
How much of it do you want to do?
When, from where and how?
There are positively, absolutely, certainly no right and wrong answers.
I documented some of my own answers and journey here.
And while you’re at it, I don't know if you need to hear this but, here's one thought:
Don't keep up with the Joneses. They're broke. And they're likely on anti-anxiety meds, too. Do your own thing, define success, goals, value, contribution and self-expression in your own way.
The world is your playground. Shape what you most want in your life. Choreograph the life that dances to your tune. Some of us have been doing it for a minute, and I can tell you - you won’t be going back to 9-to-5 in a cubicle.
Because work has changed, forever. This time around, you get to choose your own stage, dance style, crew, steps, and flow through your own way.
And isn’t that a beautiful thing.
Thanking
, , , Brenda Geary for the excellent editing and suggestions on this essay.P.S. While we’re at it, the meaning of “home” is changing for some of us, too. Here’s a thought-provoking piece
wrote on the topic.
...feeling bad for anyone named Jones...thanks for the reflective questions, incredible useful work reflection exercise also...i have a bud who is forced to clock-in at a big tech company (cough cough apple cough cough) and with commute taking 3+ hours a day he is losing productivity for him and his team at what appears to be just a tax break measure for the company...that makes sense for a ship at that scale i guess, but i do feel the future is far more likely to work fractured than pressing keycards to buttons on buildings...
"And isn't this essay a beautiful thing?" I especially loved this, Lavinia: "There is, of course, still a lot of unlearning to do to disconnect location and time from contribution, motivation, and value." So true!