The real reason you are always tired.

It is not the bad diet, lack of exercise, or not writing in a gratitude journal every morning, it’s the tiring culture of work. From someone who honed their diet and exercise regiment to textbook perfection and kept a journal for 5 years, I saw the biggest changes when I started working for myself. Reflecting back at my time in the office I identified two structural issues which always made me tired: the workday which is too long and lack of meaningful work. In this piece, I look at studies and literature to refine my observations into an analysis which more people I hope will find useful.

The workday is 5 hours too long.

Studies done in the UK showed that office workers only worked for 3 hours every day. The rest of the time was spent on email, socializing, and social media. When a nursing home in Switzerland decided to reduce its working hours, productivity increased; however due to needed coverage all hours of the day, the company did not want to hire more people and take on increased costs. As the result, the experiment ended.

Invention can be an intense and energy-demanding process but it is shorter than the follow-up production phase. For instance since the car was invented in 1979, it has only gone through improvements which led to its universal adoption. In capitalism value is not derived from an invention but rather from its acceptance as a necessity. The company which sells more at a faster rate to more people gets the highest profits. Hence, repetitive work is what brings continuous value to the company. Because many jobs are repetitive and require coverage of hours, a longer workday is more profitable. A shorter workday equals less production and smaller profits. From turning tables at restaurants to hitting sales targets and achieving class attendance percentages, every job is quantified to incentivize higher production. No wonder we are always exhausted.

Lack of meaningful work is exhausting.

Another factor which compounds exhaustion at work is the lack of meaning. In Bullshit Jobs, David Graeber states that 40% of people have bullshit jobs. These are: duct tapers, box-tickers, and task-makers. When I worked as accountant I thought I was in charge of the businesses finances ensuring that the company could continue operating. Instead, I found that most of my time was used to recover old invoices to pay down debt. I was the duct taper, making up for the time when the business did not bother to hire an accountant. Managers are typically task-makers, creating work for others to do, and box-tickers, making sure that the work they created gets done. People know these jobs are pointless but since managerial positions come with a higher salary, the golden handcuffs are too hard to take off when already committed to a mortgage, car payment, credit card bills, childcare expenses, and maybe even those student loans. As a consequence, most days are spent in toil of work which doesn’t really matter.

What is the solution?

I have strong faith in the independent workforce, the freelance sector. With expansion of digital services connecting clients and freelancers, there is freedom to set own hours and do the work one wants to do. The freelance sector still currently too closely mirrors the traditional job sector with the same tasks and even job descriptions. The rate to the bottom due to high competition is another issue. These issues can be resolved by moving toward project rather than task-oriented work. Rather than focusing on output and reproduction companies should prioritize innovation. This will lead to higher prices and shorter business cycles and lower overall profits, but if the funds are redistributed correctly it will also lead to higher worker salaries and increased job satisfaction. An independent workforce is key to this transition. When people let go of a stable salary expectation and businesses let go of an idea that business is their legacy, we can just do the needed work, taking up no more than 3 hours a day.