If You Are Looking for a Shortcut You Are Doing the Wrong Job
There are many ways to make your job easier, whether it’s losing weight , mastering a new skill, or preparing a fantastic dinner . But there is a big difference between doing things more efficiently and avoiding work altogether. There are no “big” shortcuts, and if you spend more time looking for them than doing what you need to do, it’s time to rethink why you’re doing it in the first place.
Doing something faster is not the same as avoiding work.
Here at Lifehacker we’re all about helpful shortcuts. Shortcuts to help you type faster, empty your mailbox, or cook dinner on your desk. These shortcuts are associated with efficiency and smart performance. But as the life hacker movement grew in popularity, more people used the advantage to sell skip work or get rich quick labels instead of real effort. This is nothing new, but in this age of efficiency they receive cult accolades. And people mistakenly take action to do something faster for not doing it at all.
Take the book that made Tim Ferriss famous, The 4-Hour Workweek, as an example. He offers the idea that you can make tons of money and only work four hours a week by outsourcing your work and putting your business on autopilot. This is by no means a new concept, or even inherently bad advice. In fact, anyone can do these things on a smaller scale: automating your finances can make savings easier, and outsourcing small chores can give you extra time to do what you love.
But will you get rich and only work four hours a week? Probably no. Ferris was able to achieve this lifestyle because he grew up in nice neighborhoods, went to a good high school, went to a good university, then got a good job and made good money. Then he started a business selling exercise supplements that none of us needed . In short, he is an educated, wealthy, white, childless man. He came from privileged places to advise others in the same position. Which is okay if you’re in this place, but most of us are too busy to keep food on the table to even consider implementing most of his life hacks.
These are not gimmicks to work more efficiently; they are ways to get by without work. Self-help gurus tend to view work as a waste of time that needs to be eliminated. The same basic credo follows for the work required to lose weight or acquire skills. Do you want to lose weight quickly? Follow Dr. Oz’s path to do it effortlessly! Want to learn a language? Of course, in a week! This is ridiculous.
Of course, you can see the results right away, but they will quickly disappear because these “shortcuts” breed erratic habits. They trick you into seeing short-term results but long-term setbacks, and make you wonder where you went wrong. You will inevitably consider your failure personal, blame yourself, and buy another self-help book to get back on your horse.
Let’s take weight loss as another example. Calorie restriction is a popular weight loss shortcut. The reason is simple: you eat less. You will even see some slight weight loss with this diet, so at first glance, this shortcut seems to work. Unfortunately, when you go back to your normal diet, you will gain weight again. As we noted earlier , the diet has no beginning and no end. This is not a shortcut to weight loss, you must always stick to a healthy diet along with exercise if you want to stay healthy. When you try to do without work, you will be frustrated, making it much easier to fall back on the bad habits that led you to do this in the first place.
There are no shortcuts that take away the real work needed to achieve your goal. You can read faster , but this is at the expense of storing the information and then recalling it. You can train harder and faster , but you cannot avoid the real effort and energy required to achieve results. It’s about working smarter and getting rid of boredom, not giving up hard work.
Stop defining “work” as something you don’t want to do
The real problem here is our philosophy of work. People tend to view work as something negative that should be avoided, and it is harmful to impose it on people. If you really want to make a difference in your life, you need to change that point of view. We need to stop whining and whining about the work required to get things done. The point of life hacking is to get things done quickly and efficiently without any extra effort, not to make you think there is a magic cure for a disorganized apartment or over-busy job.
Learning a new language, raising a paycheck, losing weight – they all take work, and if you hate the work required to achieve them, you may not want to do these things that much. If you really want to learn a language, getting the job done should have a positive impact on you, even if it’s just a sense of accomplishment after each class. Even exercise, which is notoriously difficult to fall in love with , doesn’t have to be terrible . The work can be hard, but in the end, your efforts should positively impact you and your goals, whatever they may be.
Your job is no different. Of course, not everyone can follow their hobby and love their job. But that doesn’t mean you should hate your job. If you find yourself looking for a way to get out of your job, it’s probably time to leave . For many, this is easier said than done, but at least you can try to improve your work without leaving , or take your time and plan your escape. Again, there is no shortcut here, just smart planning.
When you always look for shortcuts, you are sowing contempt for the job itself. This will inevitably have a negative impact on you in the long run. The boss will notice that you are doing your job incorrectly, something will fall apart, or the client will immediately notice the flaws.
It’s human nature to seek magical solutions to common problems. Not feeling creative? Take a vacation! When you come back, you will be 100% more creative ! Depressed? Exercise and it will fix everything ! Unfortunately, this is not entirely true. You can’t just blindly follow advice, follow directions, and assume you’ll get results. Yes, sometimes we fall prey to this mindset and promise too much of the bounce that certain lifestyle changes actually offer. But there is no single solution that changes everything. To live happily – whatever that phrase means to you – you’ll have to work on it, so you can stop seeing work as a dirty word.
Illustration by Jim Cook.