Moving Away From Pseudo-Work
Pseudo-work is when one works just for the sake of work, and is productive on paper but hasn’t really achieved anything substantial, or contributed to one’s core objective.
We all have a certain idea of what we want to attain for ourselves. In order to achieve it, we need to move towards essential, meaningful and productive work.
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- When the focus is on the essential, we start to work on what matters to us the most. It makes us avoid the urgent work shoved in our faces which may not be important at all.
- Focusing on meaningful work helps us prioritize our day in the order that aligns with our purpose and mission. It makes us less stressed out and more joyful.
- Productive work, which is challenging and even discomforting is welcomed as it is important and meaningful to our lives. The distractions then no longer disturb us as we are giving the work our entire focus.
- Be clear on what matters to you, and focus on that.
- A lack of structure makes the entire day random and accidental. It is good to have a certain structure for all your tasks while keeping it flexible.
- Remind yourself the reason for it being important to you, and then give it your heart and soul. Keep yourself in a playful, relaxed mode.
- Move towards any fear you encounter, and not away from it. It may be a small obstacle but our psychological fears make us feel discomfort or groundlessness.
- Batch out small errands into specific, time-bound activities, leaving time for more important things.
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Clear the space to do things to take care of yourself and train your mind to be more resilient.
'Cut back' ...that should be the motto. Take a breather and let yourself settle.
- Stop saying yes to everything. Start with saying no to the thing with least priority for you.
- If you’re working late into the night, create a stopping point earlier if possible....every little bit counts.
- Stop for a while watching or reading things online that really get you angry. Being compassionate is good, but we can't be much help for long feeling burnt out.
Just one thing less can make you breathe easier.
There’s a big part of us that doesn’t like chaos: we want order and simplicity.
- When we feel overwhelmed, we might beat ourselves up and try to look for a system to get things under control.
- When plans don’t go how we hoped they would, we feel like we’re on unsteady ground, and we start criticizing ourselves or feeling like we’re doing things wrong.
- Most people do not like to be in uncertain situations.
- Instead of an uncomfortable conversation, we would like to let the bad situation be as it is.
- Instead of doing something challenging and creative, we would rather be obscure.
- When things overwhelm us, we would like a simple, quiet way to deal with troubling matters.
We need to come towards the edge of uncertainty, the place we don’t like much, but which is full of growth, learning, creating and inventing. It is here when we toil that we find meaning, intimacy, beauty, love and vulnerability.