Do you really need to streamline your day to be successful?

I recently came across this post on Facebook from CBC Radio:

The article centres on a tech worker who started wearing the same thing (more or less) to work every day in order to free up resources in her brain to do “more important” things. We’ve seen this before – it’s a similar approach to workplace productivity to people like Mark Zuckerberg, and it’s basically an application of the concepts presented in The Paradox of Choice. There is a lot of online discourse about how doing this can improve your work performance and leadership capabilities.

I just can’t help but wonder if this hype about “decision fatigue” in the workplace is wholly a good thing, and whether it maybe ignores some other key aspects of psychological health.

Listen, if you want a formulaic wardrobe, that’s fine. If choosing an outfit is stressful for you, of course you want to reduce that weight! I’m not trying to say that people shouldn’t use approaches that work for them. And I’d be a hypocrite to do so: I refused to wear makeup for years because I like sleeping in, and I am a big fan of reducing my mental load by “working smart, not hard.” I even refuse to use Instagram filters because the energy it takes to choose one seems wasteful (and the #nofilter picture always looks totally fine).

But, please, let’s stop glamorizing the drive to become little more than productivity machines.

In nearly every piece I’ve read or watched about streamlining one’s wardrobe, it always seems that the outcome is “I was better at my job.” Not, “I could spend more time with my family” or “More sleep helped me feel more alert” or “I reduced my ecological footprint while saving money.” But to me, optimizing our jobs (and our jobs only) feels restrictive and seems to have a high risk of backfiring. To me this ties in with articles that tell us to wake up at 5 am every day and replace our breakfasts with Soylent in the name of productivity.

These continued narratives about being more efficient at work by cutting out “frivolous” pursuits and focusing on work above all else are insidious because they imply that for every bit of self-indulgence we allow ourselves (doing our hair, making waffles with fruit, sleeping in on Sundays), we are sacrificing our potential. We could always be “doing more” if only we had our schedules and habits down to an exact science. With fashion and other beauty-related pursuits, there’s the additional implication that it’s feminine, and therefore trivial. Feminine people don’t have to be masculine to succeed in the workplace, but sometimes it sounds like that’s the expectation.

On the other hand, a lot of these rituals are forms of self-care that help us prioritize our well-being so that we aren’t weighed down by the stress that accumulates as a result of personal and professional obligations.

I painted my nails a different way every single week this summer. I also got an Outstanding on my co-op work evaluation because of my creativity and problem-solving abilities. The two are not mutually exclusive, because doing my nails is a form of self-care that helps me regroup so that I can focus on important things.

To add on to that, we need to recognize that cutting out a handful of decisions per day has a negligible effect on our total number of decisions. One of the numbers floating around on the internet is that we make 35,000 decisions per day, and we make nearly 200 decisions per minute just when we’re driving. The shirt, shoes, sweaters, pants, and accessories you choose are only going to reduce that overall number by a small fraction. Agonizing over some sort of productivity algorithm for your lifestyle is counterproductive for a lot of people, and it seems like the costs might outweigh the benefits in most cases.

Again, I actually agree with Desirae. She sums the specific issue of fashion up here:

For some people choosing what they wear every day is a very important part of their day to day routine. It’s an important part of how they express themselves. And that’s wonderful. Power to them. If you enjoy choosing what to wear, this is not a good strategy for you. But if you’re like me and it was more of a hassle than anything else, I think you really could gain a lot and you’ll be very surprised at how little anyone cares or how little anyone even notices.

I just hope that when we read pieces like this, we don’t delude ourselves into thinking that the things we find enjoyable are the things preventing us from being superhumans. For many of us, the places where we express our individuality are important outlets that prevent burnout and add some colour to our lives. Personally, I feel my best when I’m wearing something that was consciously put together and different from my usual. Rather than distracting me from my responsibilities, it makes me feel more vivacious and more creative.

So if you’re going to adopt a “work uniform,” my advice is to make sure you’re doing it because it’s something you want to do for yourself, and not because you think it will confer some magical professional benefit overnight. More than likely, it won’t.

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Interesting, related read: Decision fatigue: Does it help to wear the same clothes every day? by Dr. John M. Grohol

How much does it all matter?

The best piece of “advice” I ever received came from my grade 12 World History teacher. She was a phenomenal teacher in many respects, but there’s one thing she said that I continue to think to myself on a regular basis.

My friends and I were in the midst of university application season, and every morning we would walk into class and collectively agonize over small details like the weight of our grade nine math marks and whether a school would reject me because I was stupid and originally listed the wrong program on my online application.*

It was on one of these mornings when the teacher walked over to our table and asked how we were doing. After inviting her into our daily commiseration session, she stated, simply and seriously:

You know, none of this matters as much as you think it does.

What?

At first we were astonished and offended – it doesn’t matter?! What could she mean?! We had spent our whole lives preparing for this step, and she had just nonchalantly dismissed our (perfectly rational) anxiety??? Of course it mattered!

I mean, that’s what it felt like at that moment, and we told her so. But over time, I started subconsciously integrating the phrase into my self-talk.

• I don’t get into my top choice of school? It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. There were other high-quality schools, and if I didn’t get in at all I would have a year off to save money, explore new options, and enrich my applications. In some ways, not getting into university the first time around could have helped me become a stronger and more well-rounded person.
• My boyfriend and I are going long-distance? It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. Lots of people break up in their teen years and that’s survivable; even so, technology like Skype existed and neither of us were leaving the province so occasional trips were possible. Of course I was scared, but that’s because I didn’t know what the future held – even though it would most likely be (and certainly was) better than I was imagining.
• I can’t do mental math? It doesn’t matter as much as you think it does. First of all, any skill can be trained. Mental math ability isn’t present at birth, it just requires a bit of concentration and practice. Plus, there are calculators and programs that can do statistics for you, as well as friends to help out with situations like how to tip or split the bill. I would eventually befriend many people who could multiply enormous numbers in their heads but could not analyze literature with half the finesse and concision that I could, and as a result, our relationships are reciprocal.

By using this strange affirmation, I didn’t find that I was ignoring the very real challenges in my life, and I didn’t feel like I was being nihilistic or prematurely resigned. Instead, the dispassionate observation that things weren’t nearly as consequential as I thought was helping me to re-assess the situation and look (realistically) at what could happen if I failed. If I’d let myself think that every single decision in my life was the ultimate, fate-deciding concern, I would have been stuck imagining situations where I never learned past high school, died alone, and lost all my money due to a lack of numerical know-how – the worst-case scenarios. If the effects were less far-reaching (i.e., they “didn’t matter that much”), they would be surmountable.

I also found that reciting the mantra helped me to deal with stress. I lean – and still do – towards a Type-A personality, but when I am chasing 7 or 8 deadlines at once, it’s helpful to remember that it’s okay if 2 or 3 or even 4 of those tasks do not end flawlessly. None of them will single-handedly determine the course of the rest of my life. No one but me remembers the one time I failed that test, forgot to call an event sponsor, or didn’t give 100% on a work project because I had other commitments going on. Believing this allows me to invest less effort into fretting and considerably more into working on tasks in the first place. I’m not using this as an excuse to do the bare minimum – the reason these things are forgettable is because I am conscientious and resolute the majority of the time. Rather, it’s a helpful reminder that a small blip in the radar is just that – small.

The final effect I noticed was that I started to focus more on obtaining success through the desire for intrinsic fulfillment rather than the pressure from external sources (namely grades, money, and fear of rejection or criticism). In my head, the way that things do not “matter” is that they do not necessarily assure status, praise, wealth, or any of the other rewards we hope for when we make major decisions. On the contrary, I firmly believe that I can attain the outcomes I want regardless of which path I take to get there. Thus, it only makes sense that I go after the things I truly want, and that will make me happy even if they do not work out in the long term. I enjoy school and my volunteer placements because I’m less preoccupied with the outcome, and more absorbed in the process of learning and helping as much as I can.

Even five years later, I still reflect on this advice from my teacher. Brooding over the exact wording of an email to my professor? It doesn’t matter as much as I think it does. I don’t get my dream co-op job? It doesn’t matter as much as I think it does. I didn’t eat enough vegetables this week? It doesn’t matter as much as I think it does (but I will add some spinach to my diet next week). And the list goes on.

Obviously, there are some challenges that cannot be re-evaluated by simply pretending they hold less weight. Some problems really, really matter. But where it’s feasible, I think that looking at the alternatives can build some perspective. Few individual decisions end up being as dramatic as we anticipate. At the very least, this strategy helps you think about what you can do if you don’t succeed the way you originally wanted to.

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*For what it’s worth, no, they didn’t care. In fact, it was the university that I ended up going to!