Is your work an apple tree or a mint plant?
It'll maybe make sense once you read the article
Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to make work more joyful and less everything. Subscribe for weekly essays on everything from rewiring organizations to cozy teams to living a Portfolio Life.
I realized the other day that I believe two contradictory things. I wonder where you all fall:
Belief 1: Work-life integration
Work is most joyful when it’s an integrated part of your life; when you can work when and where you feel sharpest; when something from your life inspires your work and vice versa in interesting ways. The lovely and brilliant
and I were just talking about how fulfilling this can be!Belief 2: Work-life boundaries
Work needs to stay in its lane; for a host of societal, organizational, and individual reasons it likes to jump the rails, and since we can generally only control the last of those factors, it’s up to us to throw up boundaries around work; otherwise, organizations and economies will gladly work us to the bone. I’m often prone to writing about this end of the spectrum because the problem is so prevalent.
Huh.
Do one of these resonate with you more than the other?
I realized I was not, in fact, losing it, and that it’s just entirely dependent on the nature of the work. It’s easy to believe #1 in the context of joyful, interesting work that nurtures you to the same degree it pulls from you. Writing this Substack, for example! Or an interesting, appropriately-resourced consulting project. This is nice work.
I believe #2 when the work is not nice. When it is, in sociological terms, a “greedy job”. When work is pushing in one direction and that direction is MORE PLEASE, BY EOD and you’re the only one that can defend your time. When there’s a power dynamic between employer and employee that means the business is taking more than it paid for. When that’s true, it’s boundary time.
In other words, if your work is like an apple tree, you help it grow; you like hanging around it; you put in effort but you also enjoy its fruits.
If your work is like a mint plant (delightful at first but then aggressively invasive), then you need to weed that shit. Throw up a fence. Cut it down and make some Mojitos.
No one’s trying to contain the aggressive apple trees.
Only invasive species require boundaries.
Which leads to all sorts of hard and interesting questions:
How do we make work less invasive? If we can’t use the lever of overworking people to keep a business afloat, is there maybe a bigger business issue?
If leaders don’t want people throwing up boundaries around their time, then instead of thinking “No one wants to work hard anymore!” maybe the more useful question is “Why do employees feel the need to put up boundaries in the first place?”
If we’re reviewing business metrics weekly and engagement surveys yearly, is there any wonder why work feels invasive?
The beauty of the apple tree is that it feeds you. Which is good for the grower AND GOOD FOR THE APPLE TREE. Because when you’re fed you actually want to keep tending to that tree. It’s sustainable and joyful and symbiotic. There’s shade and cider. Someone cut me off with this metaphor…
…and tell me in the comments when you’ve felt minty or appley at work!
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Totally have these same beliefs. The one thing that's hard to decipher is when the work/company has made it a mint plant or when you relationship to the work is what's made it a mint plant...
I've realized I have the same two contradicting beliefs and have struggled to reconcile them. As always, I appreciate your thoughts so much!