Am I Never Not Working?

LinkedIn is not my preferred social media platform. I have a LinkedIn account and I check it sporadically. One day during one of these random check-ins, I saw a post from the executive director of the Ontario Library Association, Michelle Arbuckle. She asked if anyone might be interested in participating in a book club. The focus book was called "Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture is Bad for Business - and How to Fix It" by Malissa Clark. 

 I was intrigued, so I indicated to Michelle that I was interested, and I borrowed a copy from the public library. 

It was probably a bad idea to add "reading a book" to my to-do list for August, which already included taking an AQ course as a student, teaching two AQ courses as a facilitator, and writing / submitting a big grant proposal. However, I needed answers to the question: am I a workaholic?

Spoiler alert, for those who don't want to read until the end of this blog post: I'm not a workaholic, but I might have some workaholic tendencies. 

I took some notes while reading the book, so that I could return the library book on time, so this blog post will highlight some of the things I learned from the book, along with some personal reflections. Most of these ideas, even if not written in quote format, directly come from Malissa Clark's book and credit goes to her.

Introduction: Age of Overwork

Clark, the author, is herself a workaholic. She described how she worked up until the minute she gave birth and only took two weeks off before returning to her regular, hectic schedule. (I couldn't relate to that portion - I actually enjoyed both of my maternity leaves - but I did relate to the slight feeling of dread that you "aren't doing enough" and that the hustle culture is ingrained at a young age.)

Chapter One: Workaholism Myths and Realities

This chapter addressed some misconceptions related to workaholism. She said that most people have 40 hours of free time per week, assuming that people sleep an average of 8 hours a day. Clark explained that work hours (as in long work hours) are not a strong predictor of workaholism. There are other indicators. Workaholism, despite the term, is not a clinical condition; you won't find it in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). However, it is, in her words, "the only socially acceptable addiction". Workaholism isn't the same as work engagement, which is characterized by energy, resilience, enthusiasm, commitment, immersion, and absorption. To tell the difference, Clark suggests looking at where the energy is spent and the motivation. If work permeates all aspects of life, that's workaholism. She taught me a new term: introjected motivation. Introjected motivations is where you act because of internalized extrinsic pressure. Another myth Malissa Clark destroys is that workaholics are productive. They aren't. There are four main components that indicate whether someone is a workaholic:

1) behavioural (the person works beyond their requirements and can't delegate)

2) motivational (the person has a compulsion to work, hates "wasted time", is a perfectionist and is attached to "busyness")

3) cognitive (the person things excessively about work, can't disconnect, and ruminates constantly about work, interrupting other thoughts)

4) emotional (the person has negative feelings when not working, might see people as barriers to work)

Technology enables workaholism; work expands to fill the time available for completion. Things like email were supposed to reduce our work but has added to it. 

Page 39 of the book had a short assessment. Have you ever read something like WebMD and thought, "Oh no, that might be me! I might have X!"? I took the test with a bit of trepidation. It was just simple statements that you had to rank on a scale of 1-5 and tally your score. If you scored 15/20 or higher, you qualify as a workaholic. I scored 12.

Now, this doesn't "let me off the hook" right away. I really do like being busy and I have worked in the evenings and on weekends. I think my workaholic tendencies may have been "nipped in the bud" a number of years ago at a OLA Super Conference. I can't remember which year it was, or the name of the book but I remember listening to the author talk about being too busy to spend quality time with her children. I remember buying the book and sobbing like a madwoman when I got the author to sign my copy. It led me to be more "present" with my family.

Chapter 2 : A Portrait of the Modern Workaholic

This chapter describes people who deprioritize their own well-being for work. I find teachers will do that a lot. We will come to school sick, because we "can't let the children down" or "it's too hard to book a supply teacher". Malissa Clark says to watch for these "always behaviours". The thoughts in parentheses are my editorial notes.

• always thinking about work (that's not me)
• always taking on too much and not knowing personal limits (guilty as charged)
• always emotionally distressed if can't fill every moment with work (definitely not)
• always intertwines personal identity with work (admittedly true, I "am" a TL)
• always in an existential crisis if there's no work (I'm learning to enjoy down time more)
• always constantly busy (uh oh, that could describe me)
• always finds unstructured time uncomfortable (no, I can lie on a beach quite happily)
• always in flight or fight mode (no, but I can see how it could creep up on me)
• always working, so there's a lack of effective recovery experiences (nope, I love sleep)

It's not good to be a workaholic, even though busyness is rewarded in modern culture because it looks like productivity. Workaholism takes a toll. There are huge negative health effects. Workers who are workaholics are less creative, less patient, and more error-prone. It also impacts their loved ones at home, and can be frustrating or toxic for colleagues. 

Chapter 3: Kicking the Habit

People will feel guilt or regret when they realize they may be workaholics. In this chapter, there are awareness activities you can conduct. The author mentioned six strategies to use to help break the cycle.

1) Redefine Urgent = frantic multitasking creates a crisis state where everything is urgent. She suggests looking back on past to-do lists and recognize which tasks weren't all that important. She also recommended assigning a fixed number of non-work items to the top of the to-do list. 

Diana's Take on #1 = After the success of my Lean and Clean Challenge, I'm trying to include those non-work items as regular features of my day. I'm still tracking what I eat, and I'm aiming to drink 2L of water a day, take 10 000 steps a day, and workout at the gym (four times a week during the summer, three times a week during the school year). This was easier in July than in August, for some reason. I really had trouble accumulating the steps because I felt "chained to my computer" as I tried to keep on top of all the course readings and correspondences. 

2) Reinvent the To-Do List = A to-do list is an invitation to overwork. People get satisfaction by checking things off, as well as the structure of the list. Clark suggests to make completion not part of the criteria. The goal is to map and prioritize, not accomplish all the items. There's an Eisenhower Matrix with two axis, urgency and importance. Decide what is truly important.

Diana's Take on #2 = I love my to-do lists! This will be very hard to let go. I wonder if it's good enough that I will just remake my to-do lists and eliminate things that are just not going to get done or don't need to get done right away. (For instance, I really wanted to sew those new drapes for the living room, but that is NOT going to happen before school begins. Maybe I can place it on a list I have but don't look at often that's my "if you have nothing to do, this would be nice to eventually get done". I think I called it "long-term projects for the future".)

3) Learn to Say No and Delegate = Clark says to say no more than you'd anticipate. Help family first, students second, colleagues third, and others fourth. Help at designated times that don't interfere with your goals. Help in areas where you can provide a unique contribution. 

Diana's Take on #3 = I remember Alanna being irritated with me when we were SuperConference convenors because I was giving directions to someone who asked. At first, I thought her response was elitist ("Do you think because we wear the red vests, we are above helping like this?") but now I can reposition her response to see she was prioritizing the kind of help she'd offer based on our roles. I think I'm getting much better at delegating. Dealing with the lack of occasional teachers can do that. As the chairperson, I usually am the one who figures out how to cover classes when a teacher is absent and there is no supply teacher. In the past, I'd just take it on myself, but it meant that I wasn't getting my own job done at all, or done well. I "share the wealth" by giving responsibilities to other specialist teachers. Sometimes, I even leave it up to my principal to determine who will cover what class.

4) Fix the Workaholic Clock = Workaholics often underestimate how long it takes to complete tasks. It's called the "planning fallacy". Clark recommends you review projects that have crashed with a non-workaholic colleague to compare times you thought it would take to finish a task with the actual time. 

Diana's Take on #4 = I'm a terrible judge of time. My husband likes me to call when I'm on my way home from work, so he knows when to start dinner so it's hot and ready when I arrive. (I know, I know; I'm spoiled.) If I'm not actually on my way home, I'll try and guess how much longer it'll take me, and usually, I'm there longer than I expect to be. Thankfully, this isn't as bad with major assignments. I'm learning from my Guidance AQ instructor, Dan. In the past, I used to leave all my assignments that required feedback until close to the end of the learning block to evaluate. I worried that if I didn't mark them all at the same time, I might be in a different "head space" and that would alter the way I reacted to the work. This meant, however, that I'd have a large pile of work to complete in a short period of time. Dan seems to mark things as they come in, so that the time it takes is spread out more evenly over the learning block. I've learned other things during my Guidance and Career Education Part 1 AQ, but this was one of the most immediate lessons. Thanks Dan!

5) Control Ruminations = If you notice yourself thinking about work, force your self to stop. Repeat a mantra or ask yourself a question like "Who said I should be working every minute?". If you can't eliminate the rumination, listen and work with it. Read a phrase you have printed like "This work can wait." Practice mindfulness techniques. Schedule ruminating thoughts for later. If your worry is about letting people down, talk to them directly and they will probably dissuade you of this error.

Diana's Take on #5 = I've been doing some of these techniques for years, which is maybe why I don't get ruminations like this much anymore. My mind tends to race when I'm just about to go to bed. My husband says he can actually feel me thinking in bed. What I do when there are too many thoughts crowding my mind is that I mentally draw a triangle, over and over again, in my head. I pay attention to the size of the triangle, the angles it creates, the thickness of the lines, the colour of the lines. I just focus on drawing that mental triangle repeatedly. I also used to have a question posted on my printer by my desk. It used to say "Have you given your husband the undivided attention he deserves today?" (or something like that). It's because he used to complain that I'd come home from work and go immediately to my computer to work on other tasks. I don't do that anymore. First thing in the morning, after breakfast, I sit in the living room with him and sip tea and chat a bit. We take long walks together and my cell phone is only along for the ride to count my steps. Flipping through social media or listening to music videos on YouTube are also great ways of wiping my mind of work thoughts.

6) Embrace Rest and Recovery = Take rest before you are tired. Schedule in things like exercise, rest, and mastery experiences.

Diana's Take on #6 = Actually, I'm really, REALLY good at embracing rest. I love to take naps! I take them without any feeling of guilt. I even lure my husband to take naps with me during the summer holidays, which is glorious. I love sleeping in. I also love doing my scrapbooking. I'm not a perfectionist with it - many of the photos are placed crookedly, or with uneven spaces - but I love making my albums and then looking at them and remembering the fun (either from the school year, or from holidays or from vacations - I have three types of scrapbook albums). When I'm on vacation elsewhere, I'm immersed in my vacation, even if it's as close by as Huntsville or as far away as Alaska.

Chapter 4: Are You An Enabler?

Workaholism is driven by outside forces as well. Societal forces include the Industrial Revolution (where time is money), the "Protestant work ethic", bonuses for overtime (making work more profitable than leisure), the "work devotion schema" (where there is a "ideal worker culture") and the concept that your job isn't just a job but your career or your calling. Organizational forces driving workaholism are things like an organization's culture (attraction/selection/attrition), rewarding overwork, and cultural signals like physical artifacts, socialization, stories and legends, norms, rituals, rewards, and role models. Beware of jargon that glorifies work. Note that organizations with strong cultures are stubborn to change.

Teaching definitely is inclined to encourage workaholics. I know I've done things that lean a bit too much into workaholic culture, like not taking my preps, running a club or working in my office at lunch instead of eating (and relaxing with peers) in the staffroom. I think I take it as a perverse sense of pride to describe my summer as being filled with "just lots of work". Yes, there were a lot of projects and employment this summer (teaching 4 AQs with paid work on a board AI project for July / teaching 2 AQs, taking an AQ, and launching a grant project in August). However, if I focus on just the work portions, I might inadvertently glorify the "work all the time" mentality. I need to mention the little day trips, like to St. Jacob's, or the week my sister spent with us in Toronto. 

My school is not filled with enablers. On the contrary, people will express dismay, not delight, if they see me (or others - you know who you are!!) working too much or taking on too much. My principal is actually quite good about insisting we go home when we are sick, or taking care of family first. 

I wonder, however, if my husband might be inadvertently enabling my leanings towards excessive work. He is concerned about what I will do when I retire. I'm not ready to retire yet, but he's not sure how I'll handle actual retirement. Both our fathers sort of "collapsed" when they retired, because they had nothing else to preoccupy them. My husband is worried that I'll "get in trouble" when I have lots of free time and no particular goals. He's not wrong exactly - there was that time I volunteered to babysit twins for free because my workshop got cancelled. Still, the unspoken encouragement to accept extra work feeds into that "keep busy" mentality. 

Chapter 5: Fixing Your Culture of Overwork

Many people don't seek change until they get a wake up call. This call could come in the form of burnout, or a health scare, or mass quitting. Things like the four-day work week are good for some work places. Clark offers a three step process to dismantle overwork culture. Other ideas include: 

• rewarding output, not input, 
• interrupting cycles of responsiveness (schedule email sends, arrange lead time for projects, requalify what urgent means)
• lower demands
• lower connectivity
• increase control
• increase support

Our union executive reps are really good at modeling this work-life balance, with email signatures that state clear expectations around the speed of email replies and respecting work hours. I'm good at lowering connectivity - I don't check my phone regularly. I don't have my work email linked to my phone. 

Before I get too self-congratulatory, I need to consider whether my other commitments (such as my work for AML, CSL, York U, Queen's U) count as work-like situations. Do I just substitute my work at TDSB with my work for these AQs or volunteer organizations? I think there's always potential, but I'm trying to fight back on my propensity for taking on too much. For instance, I helped establish a "rule of conduct" within AML that every executive board member would take turns running the monthly meetings. At one point, I was running all of them and when I first suggested having others do it, the response was that I was so good at running the meeting that I should continue. That would be a recipe for burnout, so I thanked people for the compliment, and insisted we share this duty, even when it means spending time teaching others how to organize the meeting. I must delegate. The same thing applies to Canadian School Libraries Journal. There will be officially two co-editors (me and Jennifer Brown) although really it's a team effort between four of us. I will devote time to the editorial duties, but I'm going to remind myself of this mantra:

I look forward to chatting with Michelle and others about the book. (If I'm unable to attend the meeting, use this blog post as my contribution, 'k?) It's the last week of summer holiday before school begins, so I will only go in for two days to school, only have 1 AML social and 1 CSLJ meeting, and celebrate my son's birthday by a family trip to the CNE. All work and no play makes Diana a dull person!