Fight Modern Work for Space

Having space is not something modern working practices want for us. It's up to us to find it as we gain expertise.

The job gives me space

More importantly, the job gives me something I only really started appreciating once I thought about it. It pays enough. It is interesting enough. I work from home three days a week. And when I close the laptop, there is still some brain left. - A day is short, a life is long

This, so much this. I've been at my job for close to 5 years now. I get paid well, but if I jumped around a bit I could easily add $50k/year to my salary.

But my job lets me ride bikes at 11am because it's nice now and supposed to rain later. I can grab lunch with my wife on a random Wednesday, and take my kids to their sports at 2pm every day.

Space is important and it has value.

But when you don't have space

Not everything gives you space though. Sometimes a job or side-project takes up every moment of your time and doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Assuming that you've got your bills paid, when is it time to quit?

According to Seth Godin in The Dip, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Am I just panicking?
2. Who am I trying to influence?
3. What sort of measurable progress am I making?

Just because something is hard now doesn't mean that it's going to remain hard. Everyone else in the same spot as you likely has similar hard things going on for them. Any career has the same hard steps in the beginning¹. Research shows that those happiest in their position aren't the workers who found their passion; they put in a bunch of hard work and became unforgettable at their job².

Then the work becomes fulfilling and you can bargain your expertise for space.

It's possible to never live

One of the tragedies of modern work is the idolization of people like Danielle Steel, who works all day every day. As Newport says, she's so productive she never gets to live.

Modern work is terrible and just wants us to strive for a nebulous idea of "productive" that has no end in sight. Most businesses want us to learn on our own time so that we can bring them more productivity, but of course they're not going to share the increased profits with the workers they're driving³.

It's in your hands

So that leaves our peace in our hands. We need to not run from hard things early in our career because we're just getting started establishing ourselves as someone with knowledge. As we gain it we need to leverage that knowledge not only into more responsibility and more pay, but into adapting our work so that it lets us live.