September 12, 2016

Stuff work!

Posted By: Fiona

Now I have your attention, let me assure you I don’t really mean “Stuff work!”. I love my work. What I do mean is to open a conversation about changing our relationship with work and with possessions or “stuff”.

The time has come to change our relationship with work and stuff

We need to consume less

We’re consuming our planet 1.6 times faster than it can replenish itself. In our relentless hunger for more and newer stuff we’re quite literally eating ourselves out of house and home. And it’s debatable whether or not this is making us any happier. In fact it can make us less happy.

Have you ever noticed what happens when you crave something? It doesn’t really matter what it is. Let’s say it’s a new TV. You crave that newer, bigger, flatter / more curved, thinner, sexier TV with all the widgets. As you stare at your old TV, so antiquated, you imagine yourself lounging on your couch with your also-new significant other, sharing a bottle of wine and laughing together over the latest comedy show. You imagine how impressed your friends will be when they watch the game on your fabulous new screen.

You save up. You research. And eventually you buy that new TV. It’s wonderful. Once you get it working. Of course, you never do quite figure out all the widgets. And within a week or so, without even noticing it, you feel much the same as you did before. But, if you just had that new, super-cool laptop…And so you move onto the next craving.

It happens to all of us. We go from unhappy because we’re craving something, to momentarily happy when we get it, to unhappy again because it’s not quite what we expected and besides, we still don’t have everything we want.

Meanwhile we’ve had to work long hours, or put off that holiday, to save the funds to pay for the new TV. Which we don’t have much time to enjoy because we’re busy working to pay for it. And we’ve consumed yet more of the planet’s resources.

If we consume less, we can work less

However if we buy less stuff then we can afford to work fewer hours. And in fact, there’ll be less work required because no-one will need to make the stuff we’re not buying. The two parts need to go together – buy less, work less. And if our work is still required, perhaps someone who is currently un- or under-employed could do some of it.

I’m not suggesting this shift can take place overnight. Workplaces today are mostly oriented around full-time work. But full-time work is a man-made construct, not a law of physics, and it’s time to rethink.

We think better when we work less than full time

A recent study by The University of Melbourne, shared in various places including the World Economic Forum, has found people are at their mental best when working 20-30 hours per week. The study, focused on people over 40, found working up to around 25 hours per week improved cognitive function. However “after that increasing working hours begins to have a negative impact on cognition.”

Just think what you could do with the time freed up if you only worked three days per week. You could get creative, volunteer for a cause about which you’re passionate, exercise, meditate, spend more time with people you love, learn something new. There’s a world of possibilities.

Our remaining work and possessions can then be more meaningful

If we stop making things people don’t really need then the work we do can be more meaningful, which is one of the key components of intrinsic motivation. Who finds satisfaction in providing mass-produced goods or services people don’t need, and which may even be harmful?

What if we began to treasure our possessions again, keeping and repairing them, recounting their stories, rather like our grandparents and great-grandparents did? How much more satisfying to use the same beloved-yet-functional object for years than to send it to landfill?

In fact there’s a movement towards artisan products. High quality, small scale, localised and expensive. As this Forbes article states, “Artisanal manufacturing companies have the capacity to create value for customers by offering more of what they want and less of what they don’t”. Are we seeing a shift away from mass production and rapid consumption to local, high-quality products which will be cherished by their purchasers?

Less work, with more meaning. Less stuff, with more meaning.

Like to continue the conversation? Reach out

Posted By: Fiona
Posted In: Business, Cognition, Consumption, Creativity, Motivation, Work, Working hours

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