WorkLife Harmony #7

productivity hangovers, work-identity, zesty people

Hello, I’m Rachael. Welcome to the seventh edition of WorkLife Harmony: a newsletter about easing the tension between work, play, and life. 

🍸Top of Mind: Productivity Hangovers

You wake up on Saturday. Your head is spinning, and dread sloshes around in your gut as you replay everything you did the day before. 

Uh oh. You’ve woken up with a productivity hangover. 

Productivity hangovers occur when the negative effects of the workweek linger in your body when you’re not working. I feel hungover when I wake up irritable or anxious despite getting a full night’s rest.

At work, you get drunk on the feeling of productivity. Clearing your inbox to 0, closing a deal, nailing a presentation. It feels so good to get shit done, thanks to a cocktail of success hormones released in your body: dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Your brain urges you to keep sipping on that stiff drink. 

You might be tempted to nurse your hangover by tackling a list of weekend side projects and errands. A good ol’ hair of the dog. But this chronic cycle of binge working and getting high on productivity makes us susceptible to burnout.  

How can we sober up our work brain? I see two main paths to recharge and reset:

Play: Engage in an activity for pure enjoyment. Perhaps some things you do on the weekend could be forms of play, but you need to reframe your mindset toward the activity. Sundays are my lower-body workout days. Instead of thinking of training as something I need to do, I see it as playing around on the adult jungle gym. I make it fun by blasting techno in my headphones and grooving in between sets at the squat rack. 

Rest: Social media pressures us to always be achieving or doing something post-worthy, but forget that noise and allow yourself to veg out. Soak in the sun at the park, get lost in a movie with your honey, or take a bath. Ah, that’s better. Perhaps some relaxing forms of play, such as gardening or drawing, can also be your forms of rest.

Cleanse your mind with play and rest – the productivity hangover will dissipate. 

📦Career Bites

Silvio Castelletti

reflects on his experience working in investment banking and the impact it had on his identity. He shares how a mental shift allowed him to perform better, take risks, and overcome the fear of making mistakes. His essay is exactly the advice I needed to hear, and maybe you need to hear it too :)

Out of the Box

🍋Paradigm Shift: Zest for Life

Have you met someone who squeezes the juice from life? I think of an ebullient writer-friend and a vivacious coworker who greets everyone with a smile as if she has the most delightful news to share. 

As Arthur Brooks writes, “My friend is also an unusually happy person, which I had always thought explained his enthusiasm. But I had it backward. In truth, enthusiasm is one of the personality traits that appear to drive happiness the most. In fact, to get happier, each of us can increase our own zest for the common objects of our lives. And it isn’t all that hard to do.”

Enthusiasm is a way to lean into life, whereas the inverse, “leaning out,” is to withdraw into oneself. Brooks offers three solutions: 

1. The next time you feel overwhelmed or discouraged, practice being enthusiastic to establish new cognitive habits, which will eventually become more authentic. 

2. Reframe setbacks as opportunities.

3. Surround yourself with more enthusiastic people (they’re contagious!)

How will you lean into life more enthusiastically? I will wake up free from a productivity hangover on Saturday to attend a park picnic party. I will ask people my new favorite icebreaker question:

If your life was written into two chapters, where in your life does the page break between chapters one and two? 

Squeeze a lemon, turn chapters, and enjoy your weekend!

Caught these two love birds relaxing poolside in San Diego, California. Consider this as your reminder to take your PTO 🌞

Thank you for subscribing to WorkLife Harmony. Each week, I alternate between sharing curations like this one and long-form essays.