The joy of doing things well

Photo by cottonbro studio

When did you last give yourself time to do something really well?

We live in a world that’s obsessed with outputs. That might be a good response to the kind of presenteeism that dominated our thinking about our professional lives in the past, where the most important thing was that you turned up at work and stayed there for a certain amount of time. After all, it’s rooted in the sensible idea that what matters is what you do, not how long you do it for, and sounds like the best way to get results at work and in life.

The trouble is that it’s led to a culture in which the only thing that matters is getting stuff done – ticking stuff off – and where the main measure of success is essentially volume-based. It’s about how much you get done.

It also means that a huge amount of our energy is directed towards the elusive end of the rainbow that is the bottom of our to-do list. For most of us, that throws up an odd contradiction because we’re implicitly pushing towards a goal we don’t actually want: Having nothing to do.

That’s not good thinking because it’s robbing us of the joy of actually doing things, and most especially of doing things well; and in the process it’s robbing us of the joy of work itself. The harm that’s doing might not be obvious when viewed over a short period of time because we find ways to suck it up and press on, but over longer periods of time the cracks start to appear in the form of anxiety, despair, exhaustion and burnout.

So, what would happen if we stopped trying to treat ourselves like machines and started remembering that we’re humans who yearn to do things that make us proud? I don’t know about you, but I can get a huge amount of pleasure from perfectly mundane things when I have time to give them my full attention and do them well: Cleaning the car, weeding the garden, tidying the shed.

If I’m honest, I can find as much enjoyment in these tasks as I find in things that, on paper, sound far more exciting. I just need time and space to lose myself in them and do them well.

So, here’s my challenge to you: See what happens when you do as much as you can do well. And nothing more.