My company sorta takes the week of July 4th off. It started as an almost-everyone being offline for a week; it lingers as we tend to take the week simultaneously. Coming back not having missed much is a small gift. In the explainer for this practice, the HR people wrote, "taking time off is productive." The crank in me wonders, is it, really?Most measures of productivity boil down to things being done. You shouldn't get much done when you're taking time off. It's not productive. More importantly, it's not good to measure everything in terms of productivity. There's more to life than getting stuff done. From taking a vacation to logging off for the weekend, being unproductive is precisely the purpose.
Viewing time away from work as a secret hack to getting even more done ruins the time off. Everything shouldn't be measured in productivity. Life doesn't boil down to being good at work. I don't sleep at night or jog in the morning to be better at my desk—I do those things because they are good in themselves.
I pulled a few articles from the stack that illustrate what I'm getting at here. What's good in life can't really be measured, writes the columnist who went to the world's 'happiest' country and had trouble finding her happiness. While Ben Kuhn has a weekly review exercise to make his work days more effective, what kept this one stuck in my list wasn't a favorable impression. While there's good in optimizing our work and it's absolutely right to fritter away less time on the endless whack-a-mole of computer work, there's a thinness to his approach. I can't quite put my finger on it, but you wonder if endless optimization is running faster towards a destination that may not be quite right. The last piece gives a nice corrective—maybe it's better to live and work in the right way, leaving the big goals and final destinations to sort themselves out.
I probably won't be thinking about this sort of thing over the next few weeks. As we step into summer, spending some time not being productive is just fine. I hope you get some time off eventually, and I'll be back in your inbox when the days are a little shorter.
The LinkedIn Post Where This Great Photo First Appeared
Reading
My Miserable Week in the ‘Happiest Country on Earth’
Despite Finland's ranking as the happiest in the world, Molly Young finds winter in Helsinki bleak. She then explores Finnish culture, particularly the significance of saunas, but realizes that happiness is more complex than what tourism promises.
My weekly review habit
Every Saturday, Ben Kuhn spends 3-4 hours reviewing the past week to improve the next one. He reflects on goals, tracks time, and makes small adjustments to his habits, which he thinks have compounded over time to boost his effectiveness.
Smart People Don't Chase Goals; They Create Limits
Creating limits or constraints is more effective than chasing specific goals, as constraints guide creativity and decision-making. Many successful people focus on what they won't compromise rather than what they want to achieve. By doing this, they find clearer paths in ambiguous situations and maintain alignment with their true values.