My dayjob is largely operational but occasionally, I get deployed on client work. I’ve been working with a client whose design team is suffering from burnout, anxiety, and general malaise. I wish I could say it was all their fault but it isn’t. We’re in this interesting situation where everyone in the industry is trying to do creative work without having the luxury of time between meetings, the luxury of a door to close when you need some deep thinking time, shared calendars that make it impossible to control your own time and chat functions that break that precious flow every few minutes. It creates the feeling that our time as designers isn’t something anyone respects, our attention is something anyone can obtain, and it means we’re largely at the mercy of an environment instead of in control of it.
But what, if it’s all nonesense? What are the choices still available to you? Because there are plenty of choices. You could block out an afternoon every Friday to do your admin. You could start kicking last minute meeting requests into the long grass instead of accepting them. You could start imposing some down time between meetings so you can do more effective follow ups. You could think about the conversation with an important colleague you’re avoiding by doing the busywork that’s in front of you. I loved hearing about the difference between firefighters and arsonists at work, because the reality is we’re capable of being both sometimes. It’s a choice we make but we rarely frame it as such. We’re mostly just throwing our hands in the air and say ‘it’s desperate’ when it isn’t. You just have to be willing to not be the person who says yes all the time and become a person who says no. That can feel like it’s going against the eager-beaver culture of design, but I just think of it as setting better boundaries. And maybe it makes space for new things to happen. Maybe.