The New Crop: Issue #45
"rules" for work and play + tips for managing upwards
What’s in this issue:
💭 Thought: “Rules” for work and play
😆 Today’s Laugh
💭 Today’s Thought
In my career, I’ve experienced both work that feels like work and work that feels like play.
To be honest, early in my career I flat out didn’t believe the latter was even possible. In fact, I would quietly roll my eyes whenever someone said that they loved their job so much that it didn’t feel like work (what does that even mean??).
Turns out the eye roll had deep origins in my upbringing, as many default reactions and beliefs do.
During my childhood I had etched a “rule” into my brain that would constrain me for years to come:
Work isn’t supposed to be fun, and anyone that says otherwise must not be working hard enough.
This rule kept me suffering in jobs I hated, working for leaders who tore me down.
Eventually, with new awareness of this “rule” and the fact that it was entirely made up, I wrote myself a new one:
I can love what I do, and have a lot of fun while doing it.
Both rules are 100% made up, but consciously choosing the one I feel best serves me has been an empowering act.
Some things to reflect on for yourself:
What’s the relationship between work and fun/play?
What rule(s) currently govern when and how you experience work and play? How are those serving you?
What (if any) new rules do you want to write?
A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing, and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To himself, he always appears to be doing both.
- Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
📚 Today’s Read
Three simple hacks to manage your manager
Curation & synthesis, good problem statements, and bridge building. Saumil Mehta introduces these three strategies for effectively managing upwards, especially when you reach the level of overseeing an entire function (e.g. sales, marketing, engineering, etc.). Click here to read more.
See you next week!
xo,
Anne
Agree to rewriting our own rules on work and play. But I'll disagree with with the Jacks quote -- to me, it seems to come from a place of privilege and power that many folks don't have. Personally, having been burned by jobs, I need a distinction between work and play (which isn't to say I can't play at work, just that I need an "out of work" play priority, too). Maybe one day they'll be the same for me, but I imagine it'll take a lot of hard work (that won't always feel playful).