Weekly Caffeine – Work Today

Morning all,

This week is about unstructured time, which I will share more about in Daily Caffeine audio which I record and share each morning.

Think of this like me sending you a personal, 2-to-8 minute voice memo. You can receive them here.

Work Today

As work and technologies change, so does how we spend our time at work.

I think right now, we are just coming to grips with what “work” can look like.

Is recording a podcast “work?” Or making a TikTok video?

How about catching up with people in your industry? Or, testing out a new application?

It could be, but it could also be us just wasting time.

Having a large media following certainly helps with product distribution.

But it also can be a distraction from what truly matters.

The sneakiest excuse we have today is to tell ourselves what we’re doing is important when it’s really just a repetition of how we hide.

The old world was about repetition.

It was about fixed structures that you follow which let you know if you’ve contributed. We find comfort in knowing we’ve checked the box, even if the box wasn’t all that useful.

The new world is about art.

Art is about contributing something we believe to be better than the repetition.

If you can zoom out, ask yourself how you would contribute to make something better…?

Often that doesn’t look like simply following the existing system, as is.

So work is what we do when we decide to make something better.

Work is what we do when we contribute our own perspective.

So… how do you think this should be done?

What do you think?

Owning that our individual voice and contribution can improve an existing system is the defining feature of what is work and what isn’t today.

The old system might make you feel like your contribution is selfish, weird, or out of bounds.

But it is a diverse contribution that makes a thriving team, community, or city.

If you can repeatedly show up with that intent, it’s clear when we’re avoiding contribution (not-work) or leaning into it at our own edge (work).

As always, let me know if I can help,

xx David