Before we jump in, I got a handful of responses to last week’s haircut edition. It seems that some of you dislike them as much as I do. Here’s a story from one of you readers:
“I could not believe it when I saw your story last weekend. When my hair gets too long, I get migraines. My hair is just too thick. So I have to cut it every 30 days.
“One time I was going to a friend’s house, and was planning to stop by a barber shop near his place to get my haircut. But before the weekend came I started to get my migraine. So I went into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and cut off all my hair, then I shaved my head. That same week I ordered a pair of clippers and haven’t been back to the barber since. I save like $250 a year and don’t get any more migraines…”
Also, Anne came home from a trip this past week and her first words were: “Did you get a haircut?” I’m going to have to start leaving little easter eggs in my newsletters to make sure she’s actually reading them!
Zoom Zoom Zoom
I’ve had a pretty good experience of working remotely for the past year. I managed without a monitor for at least half the time, no problem. I sat – and still sit – in kitchen chairs and countertop stools. I used my dresser as a standing desk for a period of time to keep my spine from curving outward. All of it has seemed like a fair price to pay for the extra flexibility of a remote work environment. An extra few hours to myself each week, and the ability to make my own lunches? I’ll take that any day.
As for the office environment I’ve given up? For the most part, I’ve found remote technology does a good job of recreating it. I can meet with my team, review other people’s work and present my own as seamlessly as I could in the office. I no longer have to walk to meetings, or print out materials beforehand – why’d we even do that in the first place? I’ve done a better job keeping up with coworkers, because it no longer feels like a hassle to set up a 30 minute meeting. Even our interns this summer had a great experience, despite having never met anyone in person.
So I’m largely happy with the changes. From talking with friends and family, I’d assume many are in the same boat. And even if it’s not perfect, the switch to a remote workplace has brought more good than bad.
But it’s not perfect. It’s been almost a year and we’re still working under the makeshift conditions we set up last March. Home workstations are established, and guys are shaving again, but the workday is still organized around pre-pandemic constraints. Similar hours, albeit with more flexibility around the edges. The same cadence for meetings. Availability at all times.
Maybe this isn’t your company (particularly if that company is smaller or more progressive), but I’m confident many large organizations are operating like mine. Where people are still “back to back” all day long – only now they’re bouncing in and out of video calls instead of between floors, the incessant entry and exit beeps blending into one another.
That is how I’ve started to feel since February. I have Zoom fatigue. I really do. For the first time, I’m self-conscious about where I look during calls. I’m forgetting to put in headphones and showing up to meetings a couple of minutes late. I’m even starting to question what I say when I call in. Hey everybody? Am I enunciating properly? I don’t know anymore.
So yeah, working from home is great. A little Zoom fatigue is a nice problem to have. But it’s not enough to just uplift our previous environment and put it in the home. We can do better.
Anne Helen Peterson put this well in her latest issue of Culture Study:
“What you’re doing now is working from home during a pandemic. This is still difficult for people to get their heads around, but whatever your situation is now — however sick you are of your own walls, however assailed you are by your own children, however annoyed you are by the mere presence of your partner or your roommates — it’s not what remote work is going to look like in the future. When we’re no longer confined to our homes, just think of all the options that will open to you: you can work at a coffee shop, of course, but you can also work…..with your friends? A lot? And your kids will be in school, or in care, but most importantly, not with you? You can go work in a library, or a co-working space, or a park, or a different co-working space. What matters is that it will not be you, in your home, alone — unless you want it to be.”
She’s working on a book with her husband about the future of work, and her writing over the past few weeks – on top of my exhaustion behind the camera – has gotten me thinking about ways we could improve. At some point we’re going to pick our heads up and COVID will be gone, we’ll be stuck in a blend of pre- and post-pandemic ways of working, and it’ll be up to us to make the changes that will serve ourselves (and our employers) best going forward.
In thinking through some of these changes, I came across the Owl Labs State of Remote Work report. The company makes “advanced room solutions” for “active collaboration among hybrid teams” – think Amazon Alexa for work. Sounds like a nightmare, I know. So take the report with a grain of salt. But here are some highlights:
- Eight out of ten respondents wanted one day per week with no meetings. 70% wanted one day a week with no video meetings.
- 74% of respondents agreed there should be core hours each day during which meetings are scheduled. The rest should be spent on individual work.
- 26% of respondents said the biggest difficulty of working from home was the increase in meetings.
- 1 in 2 would move if they could work from home permanently.
- 80% expect to be able to work from home at least three times per week.
Imagine if, starting Monday, you could design your ideal work from home week. What would you change? Here’s what sounds good to me:
- No meetings before 12pm on Mondays and after 1pm on Fridays
- Meetings confined between the hours of 10am and 4pm, so that the beginning and end of each day can be spent doing individual work
- Cameras off unless in 1-1 or team meeting. Any meetings where work is being reviewed on the screen, cameras off
- 1-2 hours advanced notice before putting a meeting on the calendar. No last minute additions
Some of you will disagree. Maybe some of you want more camera time. Or maybe my list is uninspired, and you’d make even bigger changes – a four day work week, perhaps. Everybody will have their own vision for the future of work. But the point is that, as we graduate from virtual-by-necessity to virtual-by-design, we have a unique opportunity to shape things how we’d like to see them. Already, in the last few months, I’ve seen some signs of this happening at my own company, with articles and ideas being shared about how to make things better. One coworker sent around a document from another company that suggested a 30 minute cap on meetings, fewer PowerPoints and, in the case they’re necessary, limiting the content to one page and reviewing a skeleton deck first before beginning on any of the real work. That might not be feasible everywhere, but it’s an interesting set of ideas to jumpstart conversation.
Ezra Klein had Cal Newport, the author of A World Without Email, on his podcast this week, and one thing he said tied in well with all of this:
“It becomes very hard to change the way your firm works or to even just change the way you work, not because you don’t think you should, but because you are so trained to do the other thing, right? You’ve come to expect it.”
He’s talking about email, but it’s a great point about our work in general. Sometimes taking time out of the day to make a change seems like a nuisance, but it’s usually worth it in the long run. Even though the newsletter provider I used for this website was a glitchy headache, it took me six months to switch to something better, because I didn’t want to spend an hour or two figuring it out. But once I made the decision to switch, I cut the time it took to send out emails from about an hour to five minutes. Well worth the upfront cost. And the worst part is that I knew it would be worth it, but I was too lazy to put in the work up front.
Newport makes a similar point about a much bigger process change: Henry Ford’s assembly line. “It was a pain, and it cost more money at first. But it was 10 to 100x more productive once they figured it out, which, to me, is a good metaphor for we gravitate towards what’s easy and convenient. And it can be a pain to move to what works better at first. There is an upfront cost to figuring out, let’s say, better ways of producing things.”
I’m looking forward to the next few months precisely because of this opportunity. Our work environments will become even more fragmented, as some people return to the office and others devise hybrid models that work for them. It’s the perfect time to advocate for what we want to see happen, not the other way around.
So let me know what you’ve liked/disliked about this past year of work. Even if you’ve been in and out of the office, or if you don’t work in an office, I’d imagine it has looked pretty different. What would you change?
– Emmett
p.s – saw this mural somewhere in Brooklyn last Sunday. It’s amazing what artists like @andaluztheartist can do on the side of a building. Check out his work if you like what you see!
Recent Posts:
Spend Less With: A Paper and Pen – The best method I’ve found to control my spending (Blog, 5 min)
Friday Ramble, March 5th – Running partners and the great divide between morning/night running (Blog, 5 min)
What I’m Reading:
When SPAC-Man Chamath Palihapitiya Speaks, Reddit and Wall Street Listen – WSJ
“We’re talking about—a hedge fund that serves a bunch of billionaire family offices? Who cares?” Mr. Palihapitiya said. “They don’t get to summer in the Hamptons? Who cares!”
The Body In Room 348 – Mark Bowden, Vanity Fair 2013 (True Crime, 15 min)
“At some point during the loud, computer-generated showdown at the end of the film, amid all the fake violence, Greg was struck from nowhere with a very real and shattering blow. A blow so violent it would blind a man with pain. He managed to get off the bed and move toward the door before he fell, legs splayed and face-first. He was probably dead by the time his face hit the green rug.”
What I’m Listening To:
Alex Hutchinson: Translating the science of endurance and extreme human performance – Peter Atia Podcast
“There’s an assumption that longer equals harder, and man, no, there’s a whole different world of pain that you can get into if you’re willing to push yourself hard in those two minute efforts to 10 minute efforts.”
Vincent – Don McLean (Spotify)