Not more work, better work
I decided to write this dossier a few weeks ago, when I found myself grumbling about my lapses in attention to a friend. I was telling her how I was struggling to fit everything in to my part-time hours, as the many different parts of my job conflicted with each other and seemed to draw me away from the central aspects of writing and editing a great magazine. ‘I don’t want to work harder, just smarter,’ I explained. I’d been taught the phrase on management courses and it seemed to make sense at the time – but did it really apply to me? After all, it wasn’t like I was wasting my time on Instagram or watching cat videos. (I’d already installed a productivity app on my computer that patted me on the head and told me I was a good girl and wasted very little time larking about on social media.) So was ‘smarter not harder’ really the answer? ‘One of the main ideas around focus is that goofing off and being distracted is our big problem,’ reflects Dr Alice Boyes. ‘Even though there are some problems with human self-regulation, we’re actually reasonably good at that. I think the bigger problem is doing huge volumes of the type of work that doesn’t really matter. People are trying to learn and succeed and grow through doing massive amounts, but it’s just not useful for producing really innovative work. And it’s not useful for mental health.