#53: When happiness tanks your productivity
We all know to expect less of people who are dealing with something difficult like bereavement or job loss or a divorce. But what about when something great happens to us? What if we can't focus because we've just landed the job of our dreams and we're ecstatic about it? Truth bomb, friends: you might not feel entitled to take it easy when everything is going well, but happiness can make it just as hard to focus as misery.
The 'Optimize your workspace' episode of the Huberman Lab podcast mentioned in this episode is here.
Episode transcript:
Who expected happiness to be so disruptive?
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and week by week I’ll be drawing on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hi there, you lot. I’m finding it really hard to get going and do things at the moment. January is always difficult - bleak, cold, dark, and instead of Christmas to look forward to, we have the tax return deadline at the end of the month, at least here in the UK. I would much rather be hibernating. But I do like bringing you podcast episodes, and to help this one along I thought I’d try to tinker with my working environment to get the ideas flowing. I tried to channel the so-called ‘cathedral effect’ while I was working on this episode, and perhaps you’ll find it useful to hear about it. The idea is that working in a high-ceilinged environment, like the inside of a cathedral, promotes creative thought. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cathedral to hand, but I did the best I could by taking my laptop into a room in my house with high ceilings and roof lights. Conversely, working in a low-ceilinged environment is good for detail and analytic work, which makes the attic room in which I’m recording this the ideal place for the editing work I’ll need to do in order to catch all my out-takes and make it sound like they never happened - my commitment to pushing back against perfectionism doesn’t yet extend to inflicting on you episodes riddled with me tripping over my words and swearing about it. There’s science to back this up - the cathedral effect, that is - I heard about it on an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast called ‘Optimize your workspace’, which I’ll provide a link to in the notes for this episode.
Ok, on with today’s topic. We’re all used to hearing about how challenging it can be to be productive when we’re dealing with difficult things: financial worries, job insecurity, trying to balance work and family commitments, health issues, relationship break-ups, and all the rest of it. I’ve touched on this from time to time on this podcast. When times are hard, we know to expect less of ourselves. Or at least, we’d expect less from other people who are dealing with difficult things, even if we have a nasty habit of expecting unreasonable levels of productivity from ourselves, regardless of what else is going on. But the point is: productivity suffers when life is hard. And since we don’t generally have the option of hitting pause on all other areas of our life while we’re dealing with a problem in one particular area, adulting successfully requires us to have ways of ensuring that life can carry on even when times are hard. We’ve all had the experience of having to keep things ticking over, with varying degrees of success, while the shit is hitting the fan.
But what about when times aren’t hard? Then, it’s a walk in the park, right? We can just power through everything we need to do. We have no need for understanding or flexibility or deadline extensions from other people. Those sorts of accommodations are only for those unlucky people who are miserable and stressed. Happy people are productive people.
Pervasive as this idea is, though, it’s just wrong. At least, it’s wrong in the case of some sorts of happiness. Its wrongness was brought out for me in a recent conversation with a colleague. This colleague has recently found out that she’s pregnant, after many years of wanting to start a family, and after being told by doctors that this might not happen for her. It’s wonderful news, and she’s delighted about it. But she’s so delighted about it, and it’s such wonderful news, that she’s finding it really hard to get anything done. She’s not being very forgiving of herself about this. If something traumatic had happened to her, she’d have expected a dip in productivity. But not this. When good things happen - like, distractingly, overwhelmingly, brain-fryingly good things - we often have a zero tolerance approach to any disruption to our productivity. And, here, I’m not just talking about our attitudes to our own productivity. I’m talking about cultural attitudes more generally. After all, it’s not uncommon for employers to offer compassionate leave to those who are dealing with a divorce or a bereavement or a burglary. But can you imagine asking for compassionate leave to deal with winning the lottery, or getting married, or - as in the case of my colleague - finding out that you’re going to become a parent? You’d get laughed out of the room. And yet, these positive things can be just as disruptive to our ability to get things done as the horrible things I mentioned. What’s going on?
I’ve talked before on this podcast about how problematic it is to think that we’re not entitled to take a break from what we’re supposed to be doing unless we deserve a break, which only happens if we earn it by working hard enough. I talked about this way back in episode #2: But I haven’t earned a rest! My argument there was, if you need a rest, then you need a rest - desert doesn’t come into it, and thinking that you can only take a rest when you deserve one is as bonkers as thinking that you can only recharge your phone battery when the phone deserves it. If the battery’s dead, recharge it, whether it’s your phone or yourself. Inappropriate ideas about desert influence our views about the effects on our productivity by good and bad things happening, too. But in this case, it’s even more complicated.
Part of what’s going on here - by which I mean, part of why we’re more accommodating of drops in productivity resulting from bad things happening versus good things happening - has to do with our intuitive sense of fairness. It’s like we all have a set of scales inside us that weigh the good things against the bad. Normal life - business as usual - involves the scales being pretty evenly balanced. But if something horrible happens to us - we lose our job, we get scammed out of all our savings, someone we love passes away - the scales get tipped out of whack. There’s more weight on the ‘bad things’ side. And that makes us unlucky. Getting special treatment as a result of a bad thing happening to us - accommodations like time off work, an extension on a deadline, and people expecting less of us - are nice things, things that get put onto the ‘good things’ side of the scale to help, in some small way, restore balance. And if often happens that other people don’t begrudge us those accommodations, because they recognise how unlucky we are to be dealing with the bad thing, and so they don’t view our getting special treatment as unfair.
On the other hand, when something good happens to us, there’s more weight on the good side of the scales. Our scales are out of balance - but lucky us! It’s because life is going well for us. And even though that might make it difficult for us to get our jobs done, we’re not entitled to special treatment - time off work, and so on. If we were given any sort of special treatment, then that would add even more weight to the good side of the scales, and we’d be even more out of balance. Our colleagues, fellow students, friends, and family would likely be a bit sour about it. Haven’t we had enough good fortune already? How about sharing some of the good stuff around, instead of loading it all onto this one person who’s already had more than their share. And as for our complaints about not being able to focus on our work because we’re so happy with life at the moment - well, boo hoo, crack out the tiny violins. How about we just pull ourselves together and get on with it?
There’s some sense to this attitude, of course. How many of us would sympathise if we arrived at work on another dreary Monday morning to be told that in addition to our usual workload, we’d need to take up the slack resulting from a colleague who has had to take some time off in order to adjust to having won millions in the lottery jackpot over the weekend? I definitely wouldn’t. I’d be thinking: it’s not fair that I am having to pay the price for this colleague’s good fortune. I expect you would, too. And that’s because we’re focusing on issues of fairness. In a world of limited resources, it’s unfair when those who already have a lot get even more. Share it out among the less fortunate instead.
But where does that leave the person whose recent good news has left them unable to focus on their work? And what if that person is you: how do you deal with the fact that you can’t concentrate because something great has happened to you for a change? Reflecting on luck and fairness doesn’t make it any easier for you to get things done. You can’t reason your distracted mind back to the grindstone. And, at the same time, you can’t take any time off either, can you? Because look at all the good fortune you already have. You don’t deserve any time off. Who do you think you are? What an ungrateful, spoilt brat!
Oh dear. What a bind. Recent events have left you unable to work in the way you normally do, and yet you can’t possibly just not work as you normally do, because you don’t deserve not to work as normal. There must be a way out of this tangle. Well, yes there is, and it’s this: not everything is about fairness and desert. If you’re unable to work as normal because you’re reeling from something good happening to you, you’re not not-working because you deserve some time off. You’re not-working because, actually, you don’t have any choice in the matter. It’s cause and effect. You need some time to adjust and recalibrate because that nice thing that happened to you has stopped your brain working properly. You’re being unproductive because you’re incapable of being productive right now. Doesn’t mean you’re lazy or useless or an ungrateful spoilt brat. Happiness - acute happiness, rather than the chronic happiness that Aristotle wanted us to work on (that’s not his term, ‘chronic happiness’, by the way) - acute happiness is really, really disruptive sometimes. It can be just as disruptive as misery and bad luck. But even so, it’s a pretty nice problem to have, isn’t it?
If this resonates with you, then great, I’m happy for you, and congratulations on your recent good news, whatever it was. But if you’re listening and thinking, ‘this isn’t me’ - don’t worry, it will be, sooner or later. You’ll have some reason to celebrate, and you’ll find yourself mentally all over the place as you struggle to adjust. That word, ‘struggle’, is key. You can be overjoyed with how life is going at the moment, and still struggling with some things. ‘Struggling’, in this context, means trying to gain control over something that is difficult to control. Like your ability to concentrate and get on with your daily tasks when something big has happened, good or bad. And while you’re unlikely to find people willing to commiserate with you about this, that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to beat yourself up about it either. You’re not struggling because you’re flawed, or because you’re doing something wrong. Acknowledging that it’s a struggle to remain productive isn’t ungrateful and whiny, or something you only get to do if you earn it. So, give the inner critic the old ‘not today, Satan’, and lower your expectations of yourself - not because you deserve a break, but because you’re not functioning properly at the moment. Nobody promised that happiness would be easy. I hope you’ll have something disruptively fantastic to celebrate some time soon. Laters, friends.
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you like to use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d consider leaving a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You’ll find links there to The Academic Imperfectionist on Twitter and Facebook too. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via my website or by tweeting your idea with the hashtag #AcademicImperfectionist. Thank you for listening, and see you next time!
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