Description

Let's talk a little bit about happiness.

Music and links from this episode

1. Travelling between the Ancient Empires by Ars Sonor & Sean Derrick Cooper Marquardt
2. Park Bench Afternoons by MindsEye
3. Tides by MindsEye
4. A curious thing by J Hacha de Zola

Line-by-line notes

1. INTRO
2. In our work focused culture
3. And because work is all about, well working
4. We often forget that work could be fun, if we wanted it to be
5. Because work is driven by profits, timesheets and getting paid
6. We sometimes forget one of the most important parts of our life
7. Happiness
8. Let’s talk a bit about happiness
9. This is AADA, and I’m Craig Burgess
10. PLAY MID SONG
11. James Deb
12. It’s probably not a name your familiar with
13. If you you are
14. Congratulations, you read Wikipedia like me
15. James Deb is often cited as one of the inventors of the 8 hour work day
16. Or the 40 hour work movement, that its apparently known as
17. Previous to this idea, 10-16 hour work days 6 days a week were common
18. It was actually Robert Owen though
19. A Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of the utopian socialism movement
20. That really branded the 8 hour work day well
21. He came up with the slogan
22. 8 hours labour, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest
23. This was seen as revolutionary at the time
24. That suddenly were going to start working less hours
25. And looking after our health
26. And it’s funny, now, we live in a freer society than ever
27. One that, with the help of the internet pretty much lets you do whatever you want
28. Whenever you want
29. And we voluntarily choose to work longer hours
30. Do more things for our bosses
31. And put our happiness on hold for the sake of the corporation
32. In the design industry, we value worker heroes
33. The people who turn up an hour before everybody else
34. And leave an hour after everybody else
35. It’s common in the design industry to work long hours
36. And work weekends, and in your spare time
37. Because we enjoy our jobs so much
38. It’s not like this feels like work, and we might still think we feel happy
39. Those worker heroes, the people who work the longest?
40. They’re not heroes
41. It’s not big or clever working ridiculous hours
42. It grates on your happiness
43. Slowly and methodically
44. And it's something you don't even realise
45. Trust me, I’ve been there and worn out the t-shirt
46. I realised, years ago now, that working the longest doesn’t make you the best
47. It just becomes habit, then you expand every task to fill the available time
48. You become less efficient, because you’ve got more hours available to you
49. Then that means you end up working longer hours, because things are taking you longer to do
50. Then the cycle repeats all over again
51. And, it just doesn’t make you happy
52. Design makes me happy
53. I love it
54. But I don’t love doing it for 16 hours a day
55. That’s not an efficient use of my design brain
56. I can’t come up with good ideas for that long during the day
57. And I shouldn’t try, but some people do
58. I’m at my happiest when I’m designing things
59. But that doesn’t mean I stay happy for very long when I’ve been doing it for too long
60. Even the things you love make you less happy when you do them for too long
61. And if you’re not even in a job that makes you happy
62. Quit tomorrow
63. It’s...