I took the weekend off from being unemployed. Rather, let’s call it a couple half days.
A little over week ago, I posted a list of things I was going to do every day to have a successful, sustainable, and hopefully short unemployment transition. I’ve been doing pretty well, completing most things every day.
Everyone Needs a Beat
There’s an insane level of productivity expected in today’s workplace. Every process, every procedure, every task is managed down the minute. Leadership leans into the idea that every employee can work every moment at 100% — or greater than 100%, depending how toxic your workplace is — and that those who can’t should be let go, while giving those who can their responsibilities.
Even in factories where productivity is governed by assembly line rigor, the idea of absolute efficiency is a myth. Machinery and robotics break down, computers bug out, and workers get fatigued, overwhelmed, or injured. At best, the result is slightly flawed clothes that wind up in outlet stores and discount warehouses. At worst, we learn years later about auto part recalls that cost hundreds or thousands of lives and millions or billions of dollars in replacement and reparations.
The further we get away from mass production, the greater the myth grows. In particular, attempting to systematize every aspect of service and creative work is a bit like trying to find El Dorado. Sure, some things can (and even should) be easy to replicate, but if you don’t allow for variance in solution to accommodate different needs, desires, challenges, and other situations that arise, then the outcomes you’re looking for will likely fall short.
We all know about “shower thoughts.” They’re often associated with big eureka moments that happen when we’re engaged in some task other than the one that’s giving us a problem. These are of course important.
Even more important important is having small “shower thought” moments throughout the day. (This doesn’t mean take you have to take multiple showers a day, but you do you!) For me these usually happen when I’m taking a walk around the neighborhood or doing some small chore like washing dishes or cleaning off the counter.
Which is to say that, in my experience, peak productivity happens in the space between structured and unstructured work. So I took the weekend “off” from being unemployed.
Progress is Progress
As I said up top, Saturday and Sunday for me were really more like half days. I’m considering this from the point of the list that I introduced a little more than a week ago.
I still sent out job applications over weekend. I still did some reading and writing. I still exercised, I still worked on a writing project, and I even made a crockpot of chili as meal prep for this cool and rainy week.
I just didn’t do everything both days.
It’s a new day and a new week, and now I’m ready to jump back into it. Maybe I’ll even take a shower today.
