Working With Your Hands in Tech (aka Doing Things That Don’t Scale)
I feel lucky that I get to do work with my hands.
70/30 days
An ideal day at work is 70% in-person conversations and presentations, walking downtown to get things for The Org, designing and rearranging interior things, etc. and then 30% of the time on the computer, writing, handling correspondence, researching, commenting/supporting community builders, all of which I enjoy.
These days I am on the computer closer to 90% of the time and on my phone for Slack significantly more than that. I’m uncomfortable with how much I’ve been on phone in February. There was and still is a lot of work to do and I’m all about it, I’m here for it. Ebbs and flows.
When I was younger, I correlated working with your hands with lower-career deeds. I thought the higher up in your career, the more time you spent on a computer, the more monitors you had propped up at your desk.
I’m convinced it’s the opposite.
This graph is based off my fun light thinking and the top tier leaders like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet who read for 80% of their day
While I have progressed in my career, I have a ways to go until I’m spending more ideal days like I described. I imagine after experiencing many 70/30 days like that in a row, the baseline will reset and I’ll want more 80/20 days, then 90/10 days.
If I’m not doing work with my hands at work, then when would I be doing it? I’ve always liked this tweet by Sahil: It’s 0% work and 100% life.
It’s hard work to work with your hands. Every time we host events at The Org, I have to rearrange the soft seating area in the west end, recruiting help to lift sofas, move plants, and bring furniture from other parts of the office. It’s done with volunteers and love. It’s also in this unique set up that makes the space feel special. I hear it from attendees all the time and it makes me glow. I love bringing people in house at The Org.
Any work that is done with the hands is done with the heart.
Once a month on Mondays, Dom and I leverage our catchup time to walk to Trader Joe’s together with our totes and buy snacks for the community. More heart work. For Employee Appreciation Day a few weeks ago, we sat down to handwrite cards for everyone the team. About once a quarter, I go through our storage cabinets and closets and purge items for what to keep and recycle to keep the space decluttered. Sometimes, I burn palo santo to cleanse the energy.
I could see myself opening a hotel with a bookstore on the street level entrance and a rooftop event space, giving me plenty of opportunities to do work from my hands and my heart.
Yeah yeah yeah, it isn’t scalable and every time I bring up the kind of creative work I’m considering, its met with the response of “it’s not worth it if it doesn’t scale.” Some of life’s most beautiful things are not meant to scale — couture, omakase, 1:1 coffee conversations.
No matter what though I’ll always write, here, on the internet.
