Designing Your Work Life

Designing Your Work Life is a helpful guidebook for anyone who wants to create and maintain a work environment that is both happy and productive by working with what they already have, rather than keep on changing jobs in hope of finding better.

You may not be able to change your current position. But you are always free to choose an option that suits you better. The most important thing is to be happy, whatever job you are doing. It’s very common for employees to be stuck in a rut. So we’ll explore ways to get out of it without having to change your life drastically.

Our lives are complicated, our work is complicated, and the best way to deal with this is to create a set of guiding principles that make your values clear. This won’t always make your days smoother, but it will give you something constant to hold on to.

Instead of always aiming for more of everything (money, status, possessions, relationships, etc.) simply allow yourself to enjoy the journey and the position you find yourself in. The main issue with always wanting more is that you can’t really ever achieve your end goal with that. You’ll always want more.

This concept is commonly known as the “hedonic treadmill”. Essentially, it’s when you get so much pleasure from getting what you want that you repeat this experience over and over again, getting stuck on a treadmill instead of enjoying life.

Only you can decide whether your job is good enough. You might not be able to find a ‘dream job’ right away, but you can learn how to design your work life. You can choose the aspects of your life that are most important to you and make sure those are aligned with your career. The authors call this concept reframing, and it implies changing your perspective on your job. Think of the tasks that you enjoy most doing and try to focus your work on those. Redesign your job to work best for you, instead of running away from it. Start by reframing your job into three parts: money, impact, and expression. Naturally, each and every job is a mix between these three aspects, so you just have to figure out which ratio between these is right for you. The money part is clear. The impact is related to your social contribution, and expression of your creativity. Once you figure out the right mix, start redesigning your dream job. Ask yourself if you’re satisfied, or if not, what’s the one thing you’d like to do more or get involved with? Adjust and start small, to see what works. If money is not a big component, you…