Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin

Author:Gretchen Rubin [Rubin, Gretchen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-88680-4
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2012-09-03T16:00:00+00:00

CONTROL THE CUBICLE IN MY POCKET

Managing time is a pervasive, widespread struggle. Like many people, I walk around with a cubicle in my pocket—a relentless call to work. A lawyer friend told me, “I quit the Work/Life Balance Committee at my firm. When they asked me why, I said, ‘My work/life balance requires that I go to fewer meetings.’ They were not amused.” I’ve heard dozens of suggestions about how to get better control of my time, but I didn’t want to weigh the merits of multitasking, or organize my emails according to priority, or download an app to get better organized. I needed to think bigger. (Bigger!)

I always have the feeling that I should be working. I always feel pressed for time, as if someone were shoving a pistol in my back and muttering “Move, move, move!” I should start that new chapter. I should work through my notes on that book. I should look up that reference. I’m lucky: I love all this work, and I look forward to working. But my feeling that I should be working, or my choice to work instead of doing other things that are also important, sometimes interferes with my long-term happiness.

Because I feel this perpetual pull toward my desk, there has always been a tension between my work and other parts of my life, but technology has greatly exacerbated it, for two reasons.

First, technology allows me to work anywhere. When I was clerking, by contrast, leaving the office meant leaving work behind; Justice O’Connor certainly never called me at home. Nowadays, writing is something—usually for better, but sometimes for worse—that I can do anyplace, so being “at home” doesn’t provide the same feeling of contrast or refuge. It’s wonderful to have a schedule free from time-wasting meetings or a long commute (commuting, highly correlated with stress and social isolation, is a major source of unhappiness), and I love working, and I love being able to wear yoga pants practically every day of my life, but on the other hand, my laptop travels everywhere with me. As Frank Lloyd Wright said, “Where I am, there my office is: my office me.” Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. Including holidays.

Also, technology has created new kinds of work that seem to demand constant, immediate attention. I should answer my emails. I should look at that link. I should check Facebook and Twitter. When I interviewed personal finance expert Manisha Thakor, she gruesomely observed, “The Internet is both my lifeline and the plastic bag over my head.” What’s more, these kinds of online tasks give me an easy way to be fake-productive. One of my Secrets of Adulthood: Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.

“I’m so distracted all the time,” a friend declared. “My attention jumps from my kids to office politics to the news. I’m not giving my real attention to anything. I can never do any real thinking.”

“I don’t feel distracted, I feel hunted,” another friend protested. “There’s always something to read or answer.

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