The Work Worth Doing

When I was young and working part-time in IT support during college, I never understood why some of my co-workers only closed half the number of support tickets I did. If I was at my desk and didn’t have anything to do, I’d pick up a ticket and get after it. It wasn’t complicated. What is everyone else doing all day? Was I the only non-slacker in the whole group? It seemed that way … but was the effort a smart move on my part, or was everyone else just chuckling at how I was vacuuming up their work so they could watch YouTube instead? (It was the second one.)

Now that I’m older, I understand more of the subtlety within the “system of effort” around me. It took me far too long to realize that the real questions I should have been asking myself are “How much of this work is worth doing?” and “How fast do I really need to do it?” On the surface, as a perfectionist, these scoping questions feel lazy. Why would you spend time deciding how much work not to do, and decrease your own potential value and achievements in the process? Isn’t that looked down on?

The thing is, it’s much too easy to expend empty effort. If I close out 10 tickets today, and 1 tomorrow, how much real impact does that have on the week versus 5 today and 5 tomorrow? If I do twice the work of my coworker, what is the measurable and reliable positive benefit I will get from it, and is that benefit actually worth it? Our time and effort come in limited quantity, and they should serve the real meaning and quality of our lives, not just the socially-pressured expectation sitting in front of us. If I do twice the work for the same result, that’s a net-negative for me and no positive for anyone else. If I’ve stressed twice as much for the same outcome, I’m the only one with suffering health and no medal or recognition.

How do we determine the work worth doing in our lives? I struggle heavily with this question because I get caught up on a skewed version of the value component. I think too much and look at the world-level (intrinsic) value of my actions, which is a quick way to lose motivation. E.g. why write a piece of music when it will be slightly adjacent to millions of other pieces, and won’t really move the needle of music development in general? If I’m not careful, I extrapolate that out to other areas of life and then find myself paralyzed, wondering, “What value can I even create? I can’t even begin to do the right work until I know that answer.”

This is a trap. It’s not up to us to determine the intrinsic value of our work. This kind of value is emergent, and though there is a cause-and-effect relationship between the effort and the endgame, it’s not guaranteed. Look at all the failed initiatives, misinterpreted goals and unfulfilled dreams, and the complexity that is introduced when it’s a team effort instead of an individual one. Even in art, the world-value of something is only determined in hindsight and likely tied to a particular window of context and time. You cannot fabricate it, you cannot accurately predict it, and as a result, it must not be the purpose that drives your work. If it is, you will either misfire at the starting line, or run the wrong race altogether.

If any amount of work is worth doing, it must stem from chosen values and serve those values alone. Ironically, this is not a selfish position — it’s literally the origin of all inspired effort. My time spent writing music must be because the process and the goal are valuable to me and no one else; nothing else is promised. The things I choose to put effort into at my job should serve what I think is important in my own heart and mind, whether that’s curiosity and learning, the thrill of striving with others, or even just making an income so I can use my money as an enabling force elsewhere.

I must let go of all external pressure, all performance expectations, and any guarantee of meaningful results, and most of all, empty work for the sake of itself. Anything else is just different shapes of the same prison.