You Become More Productive When You Have a Job, Not the Other Way Round
Tim Denning
Aussie writer with 1B+ content views in 10 years | I teach people to use writing online to create career opportunities | Let's connect: tim@timdenning.com
The power of working on your passion part-time
There is an argument that says your job is taking away all the time you need to be productive and achieve your goals.
Our jobs are made out to be bad, and painted as nightmares that stop those beautiful dreams we’ve had since a child from coming true.
My recent experience has shown me the opposite is true. After rejoining the workforce and still continuing to be a writer, my productivity has actually increased.
Having all my days free to write while hiding from the world in the coldness of my home office with moderately priced Ikea desk tore holes in my productivity strategy that was supposed to be foolproof against the dark arts of time-wasting.
Today I have written four articles and a week’s worth of LinkedIn posts, and it’s only 11 am right now. When I didn’t have a job, it would take me two days to produce the same result. That’s the power of having a job.
Your job forces a level of productivity on you that you can never achieve living the laptop lifestyle that Instagram made famous with all those palm trees and, well, laptops on the beach.
A sense of urgency
Why is this mystical phenomenon real?
The simplest way to say it is like this: your job gives your lazy ass urgency.
Having deadlines created by your job gives your side-hustles and creative work a timeframe in which they must be completed by.
Having all the time in the world by not working a job only gives your mind time to waste and do anything but do the work. We could all do with more urgency in life.
The fact we are all destined for the funeral home and still haven’t got motivated by that fact is a problem that continues to rage.
Urgency is the key to being productive.
A distraction from your work
When you get away from your after-hours pursuits and get distracted by a job, when you do get to do that creative work you love so much, you can’t wait to get started.
On the contrary, when all you have is the fence of your creative work all around you, everywhere you look — you feel trapped, and you don’t get the chance to escape it.
Being distracted through a job makes you crave your time away from those creative moments of glory, not the other way round.
Inspiration for your work
Time away from your creative work spent at a job becomes the inspiration for it. Working a job creates situations, experiences, and encounters with people that inspire your after-hours side-hustles.
Meeting normal, everyday people through a job is massively underrated for anyone that seeks to be creative.
Some of the best stories I have shared have come from people that I have had a meeting with to help achieve the KPI’s of my job, and I simultaneously had the experience to contribute a bucket load of value to the bank account of my writing.
Not working a job can make you feel disconnected
A job gives you a sense of normality which can be a platform for your quirky side. When I didn’t work a normal job, I felt disconnected from the experiences of everyday people and, in a way, I felt left out.
Playing a role in the capitalist economy made me feel connected again to people around me and that positively effected my creative work.
When you reconnect with the regular habit of working a job again, your work has a new sense of normalcy that comes with it and that makes your work relatable once again rather than the stuff of Marvel Superheroes that rarely exist on planet earth.
If you’re not convinced that a normal job benefits you, I urge you to try both ways of existing: work from home seven days a week, and work a normal job that involves going to an office.
Have a leader you report to, and try having no manager and managing yourself. Measure your output when all you have is free time, and measure your output when you have hard deadlines that force you to finish your work on time.
There’s nothing better than reconnecting with normal, having deadlines and balancing your creative work with playing a job role in the economy.
You are a lot more productive with a job than you may think.
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Logistics Officer
5y“we are all destined for the funeral home “
SE&I Systems Engineering Lead - Falcon New Entrant Certification
5yIf you want something to get done - give it to a busy person. Be that busy person. Use your creative break to refresh and use your work to let your subconscious fill in your creative gaps - this is a form of what I call Agitated Creativity. The sense of urgency is to capture the fruits of your Agitated Creativity before it slips past you. Find your zen and capture a day’s work in a short period of time.
Aerospace, Cybersecurity
5yI can attest to that...