Hmmm
There can often be overwhelm in a day to day, that prevents us from enjoying doing work even if we actually like the work.
The secret out-of-office test.
I have realized a kind of hack long ago that if i toke a day off, i could open up my computer and work at a more relaxed pace and derive way more joy joy than if other people knew i was working.
It turns out there is a lot at work that requires undivided attention but which is unavailable during an actual work day.
Often on these secret days I like to just take a moment to think , to pause, and see what happens. My mind will recall, oh right there was something i didn’t get a chance to think through or something i was feeling required more focus, and now i can do that.
Natural Pace
As i’m writing this, I realize this sounds like the “working at o natural pace” concept from cal newport’s slow productivity [4] which i was reading late lost year.
But if there was one take away on this question i had from reading his book, its that you indeed have to fake your way through. He tells Andrew Wiles story, of holding off on sevrral years of boring research so that he could then focus on proving Fermats Last Theorem , whilst titrating the pocketed boring stuff so his masters can leave him alone.
And Cal’s book is a critique of how corporate productivity counters create the dark pattern where his “deep work” has no oxygen
In the absence of more sophisticated measures of effectiveness, we also gravitate away from deeper efforts toward shallower, more concrete tasks that can be more easily checked off a to-do list. Long work sessions that don’t immediately produce obvious contrails of effort become a source of anxiety—it’s safer to chime in on email threads and “jump on” calls than to put your head down and create a bold new strategy.
Maybe there was more tactical advice there, i should go back to my notes. Mainly, my response to Cal had been that his notion of making work visible can also backfire, in what I think of as the Kanban Cage [7].
After hours anti pattern
I have for a long time had the habit of waiting for the day to calm down before I find my relaxed pace. Similarly I stopped taking lunch breaks a long time ago because one hour is not enough time to disengage.
Clearing the decks
I am reminded again and again, of Oliver Burkemans [1,5], clearing the decks, –think inbox zero,– as the reason you cant give yourself permission to relax into the important stuff that needs your full attention (aka deep work), is because the infinite abyss of toil begs your attention. It is like that comedy horror video of this demon thqt keeps hitting you with a spoon, or the so called Chinese Water Torture, [8], infinite yet irregular.
But maybe Oliver suggests we do that to ourselves.
Distractions
Nir Eyal wrote a whole book on the topic, Indistractable [9], of what gets in our way. Often it is us. We get in our way. We try to escape the uncomfortable. In my notes [10], I also riffed on the role play and fun here. Very relevant.
Aside: The work behind the work
There is an entire separate dimension to all of this, which is that there is a throughput paradox, that in order for the visible work you do in a company to be smooth and unencumbered, you need to have a clean work surface. Often you move fast on work products and you use acredit card to make it happen and then you need to pay off the so called technical debt but often the people who are in charge of the optics, the “schedule”, will continue pushing the work into your team’s conveyor belt. They cannot take the risk to justify tackling tech debt as work product (aka productivity) and so it is up to individual contributors to do this behind the scenes. Like bootlegging in [11] .
How to Operationalize it?
Here below is maybe how to actually slow down and take it in, without taking fke time off ? 😂
A Possible enjoy mindset recipe
Weekend before
One interesting idea about avoiding the dread of Smondays is start lightly visualizing the week ahead.
Not to plan the week but to think what could be a nice unordered set of items to act on.
Look at both official and bootleg [11] in progress projects.
The night before
(1) focus on the good stuff, looking forward to. Kind of like a metta meditation around the stuff i am looking forward to , a given next day or given next week.
(2) In particular how good it would feel to accomplish it. Intrinsic, extrinsic . Eyes on the prize . video tape in our mind. The Michael Phelps technique .
(3) the intrusive thoughts will try to invade. wave to them . no thanks. waste of energy.
Marcus Aurelius talks of this in Meditations [3] so it is age old wisdom. Especially about not engaging with other people in your mind. No need to replay or ruminate on past events. Stick with IRL.
The Day of
(-1) Eyes on that prize: Today’s intent One of the reasons its easier to bend towards other people’s designs on your time is when you don’t have your idea clarified.
(0) apply anti pressure against deck clearing impulses. Oliver Burkeman in his Hours book describes this antipattern well [1]
There will be fires. people will nag you. Also your friendly co workers will ping you .
There will be lots of Quadrant 4 stuff hollering at you. ( aka urgent and unimportant, think emails).
And pinky promise police finger wagging .
Dont give in.
Your daily frog . Your daily highlight must be first.
- (1) strategize on the time for protecting your natural pace time. Maybe we can access this time any time at will. Just need the mental fortitude. Might practice starting earlier in the morning though.
Using the natural pace time
hammocks? [13] strategy?
Influx of opportunities
[14]
references
- burkeman thousand hours
- also George spoonfed study guy. selves into systsms to prefent procrastination.
- meditations , Marcus Aurelius
- slow productivity
- burkeman thousand hours, sam harris interview
- ali abdaal, daily frog
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/post/2025-10-21-kanban-cage/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture
- Nir Eyal, Indistractable
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/post/2023-04-01--indistractable-book-summary/
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/note/2026-08-22-formally-unofficial/
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/note/2026-09-04-win-win/
- hammock driven development
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/note/2026-02-13-what-ends-up/
- https://michal.piekarczyk.xyz/note/2026-04-30-rain-gaps/