Meta-work

This post, while still squarely in the "ideas about work" camp, is going to be much more personal than usual. I've been thinking a lot about the sub-culture of "productivity tools" and how they've affected me.

On reflection, I've carved out an idea I call "meta-work", that represents a pattern of behavior I've retroactively identified in my own life, and only recently begun to mitigate.

I want to talk about what I think meta-work is, how I think it can disrupt our lives, and what we can do about it.

What is Meta-work?

A compact definition of meta-work is:

Disproportionate preoccupation with the tools or processes used to support one's actual work or goals.

It is not anything to do with the tools or processes themselves, but rather how an individual is relating to those things. At it's root, it's a coping mechanism for anxiety that expresses itself as an effort to be productive or organized. Common examples of things people use to meta-work are:

To reiterate, nothing is wrong with these tools or ideas. In many cases they are highly valuable and should be used. But, like almost anything, they can be used poorly. A tool or process could be perfectly fine in one context but meta-work in another.

One way to think about meta-work is as an overapplication of structure, to the point where the structure itself becomes the main object of one's work. Another way to think of it is a misordering of priorities. If meta-work is occurring, then your "actual work", the artifacts you want to produce or goals you want to achieve, are an afterthought compared to the process of how that work gets done. There may be a sense that if you don't have a "sufficiently robust" process, then you're not "doing it right", even if that process is completely overkill for the work you're doing.

As a generality, a tool or process is meta-work if it's not actually helping you but you're using it anyway. But why would someone hold on to a thing that isn't helping them? In my experience, I meta-worked from a place of anxiety, and I held on to productivity tools and processes as a kind of security blanket.

As an example, when I was an undergraduate student, I did a couple of things to stay on top of work:

  1. I kept a personal Jira project for all of my school assignments. At other times I did this management in org-mode but I got tired of configuring Emacs.
  2. I used time-tracking software to see how I was allocating my time all day.

Did I actually need such heavy-weight tools to organize my work? No, I didn't. I used them not because they solved specific problems for me, but because having a "sophisticated" productivity system made me feel good about myself. The time-tracking in particular had very limited value to me in comparison to how much work it was. It had nothing to do with helping me get things done, but everything to do with making myself feel good about how many hours I was working and making me feel like I was doing "enough". These were entirely personal and emotional issues.

Another example is more recent. For a while I used Fantastical as my calendar app because it had an integration with Todoist, my todo list application. Because of that integration, I could see an interact with my todo list items from my calendar. Fantastical also had a host of other elaborate features.

One day I asked myself: so what? Do I need any of this stuff? It turns out I didn't care about seeing my todo items on my calendar, and most of the other features I either didn't want to pay for or didn't want at all. I also found myself annoyed by an intermittent popup asking me to upgrade to a paid plan when I opened the app.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there's anything wrong with charging for software or asking non-paying customers to upgrade. But at the end of the day, the default Calendar app on my phone has everything I need and very few things I don't. Sure, maybe it's cooler to use a special calendar app, but I don't need to be cool, I need to know when my next doctor's appointment is and that's it.

The meta-worker has lost sight of the difference between accomplishing a task and how the process made them feel. They are less interested in how a tool will help them with what they're actually trying to do as opposed to what a tool might enable them to do. I would start setting up tools and processes before I would even begin on a new task. Only when I felt comfortable that I was well enough equipped would I begin on the actual work. The problem with that is that without doing the work, how was I supposed to know what tools I would need? Creating a Gantt chart for a slightly-bigger-than-normal assignment might've made me feel productive, but it didn't make me more productive. Meta-work is applying all the trappings of productivity as if going through the motions will make it true. It's all smoke but no fire.

To the meta-worker, the grass is always greener. They are constantly chasing the "magic" addition to their "personal productivity system" that will make their dreams come true. The irony is that it was never about the dreams. It was never about accomplishing their goals. Instead, it is entirely about how the process of existing in the world makes them feel. Left unchecked, it becomes a dysfunctional way to cope with anxiety. Since most of life cannot be controlled, they will rigidly control other parts of their life with software and routines and methods.

You'll find no shortage of articles or videos online like "How <semi-important person> uses <productivity software> to <buzzphrase>", "Ultimate Guide to Productivity", or "The Best Knowledge Management System". These things are like a drug to a meta-worker. They create this idea that if you copy someone's productivity setup, you'll become like them. Or that if you could only get your task management a bit better tuned, you'd finally be "on top of things". These are all illusions.

Productivity tools and processes help you get things done, but they don't manufacturer results out of thin air. You still have to do the work. A meta-work mindset looks to the tools as a source of value, when in reality the tools don't accomplish anything themselves.

A great artist can make amazing things using poor quality, cheap, materials. But a bad artist is still going to produce mediocre work (at best) even if you give them the best materials money can buy. Similarly, if you eat like a body builder but don't train in the gym like a body builder, you're going to gain weight but it's not going to be in muscle. If you use all the tools of a highly productive person but don't behave like them, you're just going to burden yourself.

Having all of the tools and trappings of productivity does not make you productive. Having the same bullet journal template or writing software as your favorite author isn't going to make you write as much as them. Setting up the tools might feel like working, but it's not, it's procrastination.

Why Meta-work is Disruptive

Meta-work is disruptive for a very simple reason: you're putting your time and effort into the wrong things. The twist is that when you're putting time into your "productivity system" it feels like it's for work. But the unfortunate truth is that making your decisions with an Eisenhower Matrix and using the Pomodoro method doesn't make you good at your job or help you be who you want to be. If being productive is what you actually want, then the tools and processes you use should be totally subservient to the work. Inversion in this hierarchy indicates a distraction.

When Meta-work DOESN'T Hurt

The other day, I bought a new notebook. On each page the top half is blank and the bottom half is ruled. The idea is that you can sketch on the top half and write on the bottom half. "Oh this will be great for work", I thought to myself. Often I just want some paper so I can diagram something out and jot down thoughts. Technically, my purchase of this notebook was meta-work, because I do not have an actual need for such a notebook. I'm no artist, so making crude prototype sketches on lined paper isn't an issue. So, was this purchase me engaging in meta-work? Yes and no.

At the end of day we're not work-robots and we need to participate in activities we enjoy. If you enjoy configuring org-mode, or setting up a todo management app, or color coding your calendar, or curating a bullet journal, that's fine so long as you have the right frame of mind. Though I momentarily "justified" my purchase by thinking it would be good for work, I ultimately bought the notebook simply because I liked it.

As long as you're realistic with yourself about what things exist in your life as tools and what things exist in your life as hobbies (or for your comfort), I don't see an issue.

How to Address Meta-work

Taking an honest look at your goals, external demands, and how you manage tasks in your life, is the first step. If you're generally happy with the tools you have and how "optimized" they may or may not be, don't change anything! But, if you're concerned you're meta-working with a tool/technique, one thing you can do is stop using it and watch what happens. For example, if you're investing a lot into managing your todo list on your phone, switch to a pocket size notebook for a week or two and see what happens. When doing this kind of drastic cutback you're going to find out what aspects of your old process were actually important. You might find, as I did with personal time tracking, that you don't feel the need to return to your old tool/process at all.

Of course, you don't need to do something so severe. You can find smaller ways to cut back and simplify with what you already use, perhaps making simplifications iteratively until you get as bare-bones as you're comfortable being.

Now, the point isn't to be minimalist for the sake of it. The point is to get rid of distractions and only reintroduce tools or techniques when they can address a specific need.

Finding Balance

It might sound like I'm decrying productivity tools in general, but I'm not. I'm warning against using them in a counter-productive way. The answer is not "use all the tools" or "use none of the tools". Instead, we have to do the hard work of finding the balance point in each of our lives.

Preemptively setting up a productivity system might be a waste of time, but it's ok to try things out and experiment too. Using a tool that's overkill might be distracting, but it's ok to use things just because you like them. It depends on your individual goals and how much you're hanging on a "productivity system".

I think the key is in answering the question: "Are the things I'm doing in my life helping me accomplish what I want/need to? Are they helping me be who I want/need to be?". Speaking personally, knowing that productivity tools had lulled me into a false sense of security, and re-examining my work with clear eyes, was the biggest hurdle and boon.