Reuniting with Real Work
I've been spending a ton of time lately doing real work.
It's been so long, and it feels so good.
Real work involves using my brain and my 20+ years of experience making something -an artifact- that has real value to the world.
- Building
- Testing
- Designing
- Learning
- Deploying
Real work is deep work.
Cal Newport says this about deep work: "I firmly believe that deep work is like a superpower in our current economy: it enables you to quickly (and deliberately) learn complicated new skills and produce high-value output at a high rate.
Busy work was killing me.
I had to make a change this as a deeply personal, urgent mission.
"Busy" work, even as a solo consultant, had ramped up to the point where it hurt– both physically and mentally.
Too many:
- Virtual status meetings
- "Urgent" Emails
- Slacks
- Follow-ups
- End-runs
- Attacks & defenses
This type of work does nothing but crank up anxiety, like standing in front of a jet engine on full blast all day. It's the type of work that makes you wonder, at the end of the day, "what is my actual job here?".
How did I get here?
I've been looking for deeper meaning in my profession for a long time.
This latest chapter of simply leaving my secure executive job to explore self-employment has been nothing more than the latest iteration of that particular goal.
At some point early in my career, I went from being the "guy who knew how to do everything" (fulfilling) to the "guy that had to ask someone to do most anything" (unfulfilling).
I became middle, and then senior management. From an expert technologist to, I suppose, a pretty good manager. This is the path for many white-collar workers, and for a while it seemed like the path for me.
Even in consulting, some (but not all) of my work was, in large part, managerial or "project management" related. After all, it was very familiar work for me and a way for me to quickly add value to multiple organizations.
Though I've talked about making time to create a product, that goal kept being pushed to the back burner.
That's changed in the past month or so.
Deeply creative work is becoming more common and more important.
I recently read an article by Daniel Meissler about why a lot of work just feels so off these days. He nails it pretty well:
"The entire concept of work that we have had for thousands of years was a temporary model that was required to solve a temporary problem. Namely, people who are trying to build or sell something that required work they were unable to do by themselves. "
He goes on:
"This system goes away when builders and creators can make things by themselves. Which is precisely what AI is about to enable."
Which brings us back to my recent reunion with deep work.
Clarity has been one of the hardest won, yet most fulfilling gifts from my self-employment journey.
My need to be a "builder" and a "maker" has never been clearer or more apparent. If I'm not building, I'm not happy. It's what I do, and what I will continue to do, as long as I can.
And, that need has nothing to do with being self-employed or not, as it turns out. An IC job or a higher level job in a very small organization gives you that same opportunity to make and build. Huge point of clarity there.
This is the new criteria for work, for me at least. How about you?