(upbeat music) - Hi Cal, my name is Vinny and I'm a freelance software developer, but this question isn't about me. I'm trying to help my girlfriend, a high level photo producer, avoid ad hoc unstructured back and forth messages, but constantly putting out fires and acquiescing to last minute ultra short deadlines that necessitate promptly responding to collaborators questions and feedback seems to be the entirety of her role and the value that she brings to her clients projects.

I suppose more generally, my question is, when an entire industry and your competition within it seem to be fully content with losing their sanity to the hyperactive hive mind, and this precise trait gives them a competitive edge, how can we compete? It often feels like it's better to give in for a few years and enjoy the high salaries, retire early and then get into a deep life, but years have a way of turning into decades and decades into death.

All right, thanks. - Well, we have a lot to cover here. I mean, first of all, there's the inherent danger of this situation. So you're looking for advice now to give to your girlfriend and I can tell you there's nothing that girlfriends like more than having their boyfriends explain to them how they should live their life and how their work should actually be executed.

So we're already in trouble here. So good luck. But let's look at this more abstractly. Let's look at this more abstractly. Jobs that seem to be inherently hyperactive, what should you do? And it looks like what you're asking is, can it be improved? And if not, should it be suffered through temporarily?

And then maybe you build up a lot of money, retire early, or should you switch? I think these are good questions. Because all the answers are on the table. Let's start with this particular job that your girlfriend has. And push on the issue of whether it can be made less hyperactive.

And if we decide in the end it can't, then we'll look at these other two options. All right, there are a lot of positions that seem fundamentally hyperactive that you can actually do a lot of work to pull that back. So when you're in a situation where it seems like hyperactive communication is necessary, often what that means is, given the existing agreements and structures for interaction that are in place, there's no way to do this work without just being on demand and being able to answer things all the time.

That's often what that means. Because often the exercise someone will do is they will say, well, what would happen if I just stopped tomorrow checking my email all the time? What if I didn't look at my phone all the time? And they say, oh, it'd be a disaster because this is when things come in and they're urgent and things would get missed.

And that's true. But the question is not what would happen if I stopped tomorrow checking email or checking my phone. The question is, is there work I could do right now that would make it possible a month from now not to be checking my email or phone so much?

That is, if we change the fundamental agreement and structures for how interaction actually happened. There's probably a lot more leeway here than you might expect. The big principle I always come back to is that when it comes to external communication, clarity trumps accessibility. Almost always true. Why do people want an immediate response for something?

Because in the lack of other clarity about how interaction on this subject occurs, there's no clarity on that. When I send a message to you, I am stressed out right away. This is important. I need it dealt with. There's nothing I can count on here about here's how these sort of situations always get dealt with.

And so until you answer me, I have to keep this on my mind as a source of stress. In that environment, yes, I'm gonna want you to answer right away because every minute you don't answer is a minute that I have to keep track of this thing and be stressed about whether it's gonna be answered or not.

Almost always when you see these cases of people saying, emailing two minutes after the first email, did you get the first email? What's going on? It's not because they have some sort of dictatorial obsession about communication. It's because every minute that you don't answer is one that they're stressed out and trying to keep track of this.

So if you can have more clarity, this is how we deal with X. This is how we deal with Y. This is how we deal with Z. Clarity that takes that stress away from the client. Okay, I know how this is gonna handle. I can get off my mind.

You're often gonna be okay with that. Even if the way it's handled is not, I will just get back to you within one minute. Now, I can't give you the specific solutions for your girlfriend's situation because I don't know that industry well. But I can talk about the type of things I've seen in other classically hyperactive, communicative segments of the economy where we've seen escape from hyperactivity.

So having something like, here are the set times we talk every week. We can get through everything that's going on and I'll give you a written copy of everything we discussed and all the commitments so we can get that right back to you. That often makes a big difference.

Office hours make a big difference. If there's a set time that you can get me every afternoon or every morning and I will be there, you'll just get me and you can look me in the eye over Zoom or get me on the phone and we handle what has to happen.

That works pretty well. Having an assistant of some type that intakes all of the intaking crisis communication. And you have a morning and afternoon sit down with that assistant and the client knows this. The client is like, "Oh my God, there's this issue here." And the assistant's like, "I've got it, I've logged it.

And Susan will be looking at this afternoon." One way or the other, you will hear back from us at the end of that afternoon or the end of the morning session if it comes in overnight. Clarity, I've sent this thing, I got a response. I know one day I'm gonna hear a more detailed response.

I trust it. I can get it off my head. I'm not gonna be so stressed out about it. Depending on the type of work, more involved client extranets can work as well. You have a whole system. Here's the status of the project. Here's where the next meeting is. Here's all the documents.

Here's the blog about what we're working on, the work logs. You can see what's going on. Here is where you register your questions and concerns and we can see them right here. And the answers come in here and you get those answers once a day. That makes a big difference.

Having different tools for information to be injected into the project beyond just let me put it in an email and hope it gets tracked. Some sort of collaborative project management software, that can make a big difference. All these things can make a big difference. Now let's say you've done all of that but there's these two clients that say, I don't care.

I just want you to answer my email because that's my thing. Well, then you have the option of firing those clients. Because this is also something that comes up often in these situations that the malformed social instinct that says you have to answer me is not evenly distributed. And the people who have that instinct, you don't care about clarity.

They like the power, don't work with them. Right? Yeah, less money, but you're going to do much better with the other clients are going to be happier. So I think all those things are on the table. Clarity over accessibility, clarity over accessibility, firing the small number of people who won't put up with that.

That might get you there. If that doesn't get you there, if it's fundamental for this work, now it's just the way her firm runs. They're not going to change. That's just what it is. I would counsel against the, I will retire soon or early. Let me put up with it to make the high salary.

Not worth it. Not worth it. Take your career capital, go somewhere else where you can set up a day-to-day professional life that is sustainable. I would do that tomorrow. I would do that tomorrow. You're not going to build up enough money to retire in three years. That's hard to do.

You're going to spend more of it than you think. And you're going to land the autonomy trap. You're going to land in the classic autonomy trap of you're going to get higher and higher salary, get better and better. It's very difficult to leave. I'm usually very much against almost any professional circumstance where it is unsustainable and pulling down on your mental health.

Almost always that is not the right place to be unless it really is time limited and serving a broader goal. If you're a Navy SEAL in buds during hell week, yeah, that's psychologically bad, but it's serving a larger goal and it will be over after a few days and then you'll have the pool torture and some other stuff going on, but then it will be done.

Okay, I get that. But if it's just, this is how we do business, get out sooner rather than later. You know, life is too short, but also life is too cool. There's too much potential for interestingness and depth and everything else that could be going on in your life.

With all of that potential out there, do you really want to have the dominant thing in your life being a day-to-day experience that is stressful and dragging? So if you cannot engineer the hyperactivity out of the position, change that position. And again, I'm sure your girlfriend's going to appreciate you figuring this all out for her and telling her what she should do for her job.

And so let me just, I'll speak directly to your girlfriend. My apologies in advance for the mansplaining that's coming your way, but it's a good question in the abstract. And I think that's the way I think about it. (upbeat music)