How to Not Always Be Working: A Toolkit for Creativity and Radical Self-Care

"Yes. It’s a really sweet little book. It’s pocket-sized. It’s pastel pink. But it’s also funny. I think it taps into this weird problem we’ve got at the moment. Maybe it’s millennials, maybe it’s everyone, but we feel so guilty when we’re not working. It’s almost a good problem to have in the world, isn’t it? That we’re all obsessed with working. The opposite would be a problem, wouldn’t it, if no one wanted to ever do any work. It feels like we’re full of an incredible energy at the moment. Young people want to be activists; they want to do things for the world. And it feels like there’s a nervous energy around taking time off. That’s something that always comes up in Q&As. People will say: “I feel guilty when I’m not working.” “This is something that always comes up in Q&As: people feel guilty when they’re not working” This book is really great. It’s quite practical but it’s also written in a kind of memoir style. One of the exercises is the most basic thing ever, but it’s one of those things where you realise, ‘Oh, I’ve never actually done this before.’ To do it, you write down what ‘work’ is, and you write down all the things that aren’t work. Then you have these crossovers, the grey area of what could be work. For example, going on Twitter. That’s work, but it’s kind of fun, so is it? Basically, you make three lists, and the not-work is stuff like having a bath, going for a walk, eating your dinner, talking to a friend. It’s amazing just how many of them cross over, but the ones that don’t are really crucial for self-care, and if you’re not doing them on a daily basis, then you need to make more time for them. Yeah, I love it. I love this little book. Oh my god, that’s so true. Yeah, I mean it’s such a difficult one because what’s so amazing about being self-employed is that every single gain you make is yours to keep. Everything goes into the pocket of the business that you own, so those Sunday nights I stay up until midnight working on a project—they are never going to be the same as if someone else is barking orders at me, making me do it. Because that kind of big project might allow me to go on a massive holiday or take time off. The choices are ultimately mine, so it never feels as bad. But it’s true. We should be kind to ourselves. There’s another very simple thing: sometimes I listen to the way I speak to my friends and think, ‘I should speak to myself in the way I speak to my friends.’ Because I am kinder to my friends than I am to myself sometimes. Because I don’t think I do that enough. The other myth, I will say, is that I do think that being your own boss has been romanticised. It’s not true that you don’t have a boss. You do. You’ve always got bosses—you just have them for shorter periods of time. You always have clients, people that you have to please and work hard for. I do think there are some sides of self-employment that people love to put on a t-shirt or put on a mug and glamorise. It’s not always the case. What I was getting at with ‘bulk recording’ is that the more that you can do of the same task in one go, the better. Even—and I’m not saying I’m perfect and I stick to this all the time, but still—only doing your emails in the morning and at night. Well, not night, but maybe 5 pm. That has changed everything for me. We shouldn’t feel like we have to be at the beck and call of everyone else all day long. As an author called Tom Chatfield wrote , “your inbox is a to-do list written by someone else.” It is something that I try and do, and although I know that not everyone can, it’s good to keep the day as free as you possibly can. What else? One thing that is important is really, really planning ahead. Making sure that you are always at least one step ahead. For example, with my podcast, I plan that around a month in advance and I make sure all the content is up and ready. Much like a magazine would or any company plans ahead—I don’t think you should ever feel like if you’re self-employed then you shouldn’t stick to those things. Because what if you get ill? What if something happens? It’s really important to make sure that you aren’t chasing your tail, because we just don’t know what’s around the corner. At the end of the day when you work for yourself, you need to look after yourself. I think planning ahead is something that makes me feel much more in control."