Stop Working 8 Hours a Day
Today I read Lawrence Yeo’s essay entitled “Creativity Starts Before Anything Is Made”. This quote in particular, stood out to me:
“Using a 40-hour workweek to measure creativity is like using a 12-inch ruler to measure happiness. There is a fundamental mismatch between what the tool is designed to measure, and the object of measurement itself.”
Reading this made me pause.
What if a 40-hour workweek is detrimental to my writing, even though I have my old energy back?
That’s a terrifying possibility for me. With my Q2 slump still fresh in my mind, it’s been a relief to have the energy to work full 8-hour days again. It’s been satisfying to build my own schedule from scratch, to spend hours writing, and to say hell yes to projects, like DAOs and my blogging challenge.
But what if, instead of wasting time if I’m not writing, I’m actually wasting time if I spend too much time writing?
Writing is a compression or distillation of what I learn when I’m not writing. Most of my 24 hours should be spent living – reading, thinking, learning — so that I can have stuff to write about tomorrow. The “living” comes before the “writing” part, both in chronology and priority. Scary as it may seem, the more I learn about the craft of writing and the life practice of creativity, the more I understand this paradox.
Working less is more uncomfortable for me than sitting in front of my computer for 8 hours a day. It feels unproductive. It’s an indirect solution to the output I want to produce. There’s no certainty that I’m even doing the right thing. But if this is what I need to do to write for you each morning, then that’s what’s gonna happen.
Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s 4pm. I’m shutting down my laptop for the day and heading out to Whole Foods for a grocery run.
Thanks for reading this piece! I usually write about web3, creativity, and the creator economy. If these interest you, you’ll probably enjoy my weekly newsletter. Subscribe below to get more posts, or check out previous editions to “try before you buy”.