Rhythms and Rituals for a New World of Work

A Better Work Series (part 2/3)

Niel Wilks is a Brit in New York who hasn’t lost his love of tea. Each weekday morning he wakes at 6:30 a.m. With a cuppa in hand, he lazes about the kitchen table; the calm surroundings put him in a well chirpy mood. He peruses emails on his smartphone, since reading and responding on this particular device forces succinctness.

Wilks started out in the world of human resources back when it was still dubbed ‘personnel’ and cut his teeth building resilient cultures at Nokia, Cisco, Amazon, and Soundcloud. He manages an impressive volume of creative output precisely because he doesn’t work round-the-clock. For Wilks, it’s all about getting energy from people. “I like to be able to come and go [to the office] as I please. I like the security of a home base, but I don’t need a personal space — I just need my flock. If I’ve got my flock I’m happy,” he states. And for many like his flock, this rhythm of working has become the norm.

Once out the door, Wilks hops on the J train to Manhattan and switches to his iPad. The confines of the train (in particular the intermittent Internet) enable dedicated time for more thoughtful work. This found time is sacred.

Discovering and safeguarding this time to do your best work is really what distinguishes prolific creators like Wilks and others from the rest of the pack. On New Years Day, without fail John Grisham, another such prolific creator, starts writing a new book. Five days a week, each morning at 7 a.m., he’s in the same room, sitting on the same chair, tapping away on his trusty computer, and most importantly — with a cup of coffee in hand. No beeps, pings, messaging, or Internet for that matter — simply no distractions. And like clockwork, six months later he’s finished. He’s been performing this ritual for 30 years. That’s 30 books. If that’s not a precious, effective work ritual (and yes, a tad OCD), then I don’t know what is.

Yet, how you move fluidly between modes of working is really determined by your self-discipline. Everyone has their own distinct R&Rs, and what matters is protecting the times you are most creative to ensure you keep your flow. If you fail to design and adopt the conditions for doing your best work, it’s likely because you didn’t deliberately choose when, where, and how to do it.

Often we can speed things up in work, simply by slowing them down. If you’re one of those people that thinks scheduling leisure time is a low priority, think again. Research supports that when you get busy (like real busy), your attention is hijacked. You simply can’t exercise good judgment on how best to spend your time. The net outcome of course is that you end up even busier and with increased anxiety.

What matters then, is that when trying to fuel your creativity, you avoid incessant hours of toil. “Even in today’s 24/7, always-on world, we can blend work and rest together in ways that make us smarter, more creative, and happier,” writes Alex Pang in his book Rest. Instead of burning the midnight oil, you might take time out to master the skill of resting, drawing in that blissful state of boredom.

Joy at the office. Happiness in work. Fulfilment in your career. These are all things we’d surely like, but if anything they are constructs of the mind. These are moments where we hold a particular view of ourselves. I’ve come to favour the word meaning, because finding purpose in work suggests a temporariness whereby we continually are striving for confirmation. Even as we grow and change, identifying with our work can wondrously make us feel more like ourselves.

A simple test of meaning in work is, “Whether we do work so obviously useful that we have only to describe it,” explains Raymond Williams in Work: Twenty Personal Accounts. Williams thought that we all chase meaning in our work so that we can feel alive in some unique way. OK, so maybe from time to time you daydream of being a food critic or a wilderness photographer (I know I sure do). The point is that everyone is different — and if you subscribe to finding purpose in your work, the contribution you make to the world will be evident. Work is the one thing, next to love, to which we direct the most energy. Finding fulfillment in your work comes from its intrinsic value, even over the instrumental. And deliberate R&Rs that weave together adrenaline-pumping work sessions with good old fashioned leisure increase your energy.

My hunch is that if you’ve read thus far, you do what you do because you feel you’re making a contribution to the world. And I’d harbour a guess that today you couldn’t see yourself doing anything else. The proof is in how you bring your whole self to work. And the pudding? How our lives are shaped by the work we do.

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