Life is too short to think about work outside of work.
Trust - a “run-out-the-clock” situation isn’t all that nice.
☀️ Summer is here.
The weather is nice, the days are longer, and humans go on holiday. It makes having a “life outside of work” feel more possible than, say, when it’s pitch black at 4pm, cold, and raining/snowing. Summer brings space.
Many of our first jobs are somewhat of a career “summer.” 🏝️ This role is usually the easiest - in the sense that there are low expectations of your skillset, you have few responsibilities, and you (should) have managers that keep you from making any major mistakes.
In return, you may have to do the time-intensive, easy-to-train, less pleasant jobs while you learn the ropes.
My first job out of university was at a big PR agency, and my primary task was to pitch “breaking news” from the agency’s clients to journalists. Several times a week, us junior staffers would get an excel from the client account team with 200+ names, emails, and phone numbers. We would first email the press release to each journalist, then call them to ask if they’d seen the email and if they wanted to write about the life-changing yogurt. 🥴
Because we were reaching out to up to 1,000+ people a week, there wasn’t much time for personalisation. So it was a numbers game. Copy/paste, bcc, send. Dial, leave message, dial, leave message, dial, get hung up on, dial, leave message. An easy way to spend a LOT of time, yes, but not a pleasant use of time. Not just because journalists would curse at you for wasting their time (fair), but also because it didn’t DO anything. You don’t get results that way (emailing like a human, though - different story) which means the clients were unhappy with you on top of the journalists being unhappy with you (again, fair). I was working hard, but it was not at ALL smart. It was designed that way, because we had no skills, but wow - it sucked.
When you leave work demoralised, tired, and without much to show for it, you can’t show up in the rest of your life motivated, awake, and happy. Most nights I’d just metro home, stop into Whole Foods to get cheese orphans and olives, and mindlessly watch TV while anxiously checking my email.

No one told me to stay on my email, and there was nothing keeping me from meeting friends for dinner or cooking for myself. But when work ended, I didn’t have any motivation left. I was working a very manageable 40 hours a week, but brainspace-wise, it was like I was pulling 12-hour shifts.
How you spend your 40 work hours will influence the other 128. If you spend them working smarter, not harder, I promise: More of your “self” will return to you.
What is “working smarter, not harder?”
Choosing how to do your work in a way that not only delivers better results for the job, but far better results for you as a human. Here are some scenarios - in which scenario do you think you go home more relaxed and happy?
🏔️ Spending 40 hours a week pushing a heavy boulder up a mountain by yourself; or spending 40 hours a week using a crane and other helpful machinery to relocate several boulder(s)?
🦪 Spending 40 hours a week shucking sharp oysters with cheap gloves and a dull oyster knife*; or spending 40 hours a week shucking oysters with the Cadillac of gloves and a handy oyster shucking machine?
This is one of the worst jobs in a restaurant, according to my partner + co-founder + career chef Peter. After seeing how gnarly oyster cuts and shucking injuries can be, I believe it. Google at your own risk.
📱 Spending 40 hours a week cold-calling 400 people; or spending 40 hours a week calling 100 well-researched people?
✅ Spending 40 hours a week continuously catching up; or spending 40 hours a week coolly and calmly working through your organised to-do list?
Yes, you’re going to work the same amount of time. This isn’t a newsletter that tells you how to get paid for 40 hours while working for 20 hours. You get paid in exchange for work. Your skill level + amount of time you should be deploying those skills at your work determines your compensation. If you want to work less, let’s be direct about that.
Working smarter is about spending the time at work in an easier, less draining, and less tiring way. ✨
Hmm, is this really for *me* or is this just a work productivity thing for The Man?
Yes, working smarter is good for your Work Self™. But it is JUST as good for your human self.
When you work smart, you create the space for you to work when at work and not work when not at work.
This means you can:
✨ Close your laptop and head out to dinner without work guilt or distraction.
✨ Go on holiday and rest easy knowing you set everything up to be easily handled without you.
✨ Not talk about, dream about, or otherwise think about work in non-work situations.
✨ Cook dinner for yourself instead of eating leftover overpriced cheese.
This sounds nice right? I hope so. Because it’s definitely nicer than either of the two other common approaches: Running out the clock and tickbox exercises.
Requisite disclaimer: Obviously, if you’re in an environment where working smart and getting results isn’t rewarded, then I get why you’d do the bare minimum while looking for another job. Instead of making this about the shit workplaces that operate like this, we’re focusing on how to flourish if we’ve found our way, or are finding our way, into a workplace where we’re empowered to do well.
⏰ Alternate approach one: Running out the clock

It’s true - you can work slowly for your entire working week and still get paid. But it isn’t a surefire approach. Employers run regular calculus on value vs. cost. If you freelance, your rate is understood to acknowledge the speed and skill with which you work.
So even when technically doing the minimum, a safe job today might not be safe tomorrow if someone catches on. And if you’re not learning anything OR delivering tangible results, it'll be hard to get that next gig if you can’t answer the question, “What did you accomplish in this role?”
But aside from the work consequences, what about you? Are you fulfilled working this way? Because it isn’t a nice feeling to chalk up yet another week (of which we have 4,680 if we live to be ninety) to nothing but a paycheck and two days off before you do it all over again.
If you are fulfilled, great. Maybe this punch-in, punch-out approach funds the rest of your exciting and rich life. Still, 40 hours a week bored AF can mentally exhaust you, which can steal from your motivation for the rest of your life that you love.
Achieving the minimum can also create anxiety. It starts to creep in in the form of wondering whether anyone noticed, worrying if your job is safe, or overanalysing that email without punctuation (was it passive-aggressive or not?). Once that fence comes down, it’s nigh impossible to leave work at work.
What do you have to lose by trying something different?
📝 Alternate approach two: Tickbox exercises
I stole this British-ism from my partner Peter (or Ted Lasso, or the Crown. Hard to know at this point). Doing tickbox exercises is a way of working where you “check off the list” what’s asked of you and….that’s it.
Pros:
If you can finish your work in half the time, you work half the time (as long as you can hide this well enough). It’s even easier to prove what you achieved - because it’s exactly what was asked. And it’s easy AF to decide what to do, because you’re told. Easy, easy, easy. Right?
Cons:
You still have to be available for the entire working week, so you can’t sign off and go surfing. This isn’t the way to a promotion or a raise, either, because doing what was asked is not excelling. It’s like getting a C in a class. Yes, you wrote the paper. But if you didn’t show up half the time, you’ve not done anything exemplary. Lastly, when you’re told what to do, you become really good at taking orders. However, most big salary and job jumps come when YOU can decide what to do. This strategic skill takes practice.
This system would be great if life was fair and humans were rational.
If it was, and we were, work could be just like university. Attend class, write the paper, know the answers = A+. But it isn’t. And if you operate this way, your work-life and your life-life are going to be stressful. You won’t understand why your manager is mad at you for not responding during the work day. You won’t get rewarded (C work doesn’t get an A grade). You won’t build the critical thinking and strategic skills required to progress in your career.
And when you sign off on Friday, you’re going to be tired and resentful.
Because you don’t have any agency in your work - and that’s because you didn’t take it.
Ok, I hear you. What does working smarter look like, then?
Yessss. We’ll talk about this throughout the month to help you discover what working ‘smarter’ looks like to you. Here’s just a few highlights of what we’ll cover:
What’s my process for staying organised? ✅
(NEVER discount the emotional labor you spend inside and outside of work if you’re always playing catch-up. It’s pernicious.)
What systems, platforms and tools are available to me now that can make me more efficient and make the doing of my work easier? If none - can I find some?Also worth exploring: Have I been avoiding using them? Why? 👀
Do I proactively plan for my time away from work? How can I make sure that when I go on holiday or close my laptop for the night, I’ve left a clear trail to 1) where something is 2) how to use it and 3) what the next step is? 🏖️
We’ll cover this + more in the coming weeks.
Setting aside the negatives of Work-as-Personality, it is pretty cute that we, as humans, create so much of ourselves from our jobs. I love the artsy intrigue of being a Writer™, but have enjoyed the Scandal-inspired organised coolness of being a PR Person™.
These identities create camaraderie and their universal language connects us to similar Work People. No matter where you’re a Chef™ or Lawyer™ or Social Media Expert™, you can find some common ground when you meet someone in your field. It’s nice.
But these jobs we do aren’t completely who we are. We’re humans who should have hobbies, interests, families, friends, and selves that exist outside of work. And working smarter (not harder) makes it easier to save brain space, emotional energy and physical time for this part of our existence.
Next week, we’ll be exploring organisation techniques to keep you from feeling like a ping pong ball bouncing uncontrollably between your tasks until forever.
Until then - work it!
✨ Rachel