Work Burnout And "The Christmas Tree Effect"

You can start with this article , from David Epstein .

The basic idea is: we think that you solve problems by adding more, but in reality you often solve problems by taking away stuff that doesn’t need to be there in the first place.

Some professor in that article even notes:

Modern work is nightmarishly insidious about adding stuff to our plates. The cure is to get your group together and ask: What do we still do that is adding needless friction, or is no longer useful — and then stop doing those things.

Hard to say it more simply than that.

The problem with modern work, or at least modern white-collar work, for a lot of people is that there’s an awful intersection many of us find ourselves at eventually:

1. Our boss is not very competent or capable.
2. He or she is obsessed with managing up, so constantly adds new tasks to your plate.
3. He or she cannot prioritize those tasks for you.
4. Someone sneers, “Well, we’re paying you, aren’t we?”
5. Rinse and repeat.

This, of course, creates a lot of burnout. Managers pretend to care and usually don’t. Executives, at this point, don’t even pretend to care.

When you end up at the “Incompetent Manager” + “No Prioritization” intersection, you usually end up burnt out and chasing other stuff. For me, I’m currently bartending a few shifts per week. White-collar work can be good money, but it comes with so much f’n baggage too.

The Christmas Tree Effect is a big reason for the problem — the idea that more, more, more must be the path, even though a lot of people are already doing more than they should (or, at the very least, claiming to). In the article linked at the top, a guy who designs gear for the Army said he eventually ended up designing gear that weighed more than the smallest recruits — because every year, in meetings, officials added more, more, more. But that made the soldiers less effective. Eventually you need to just scale back and subtract instead of adding, you know?

It’s applicable to meetings, emails, tasks, and processes. The problem is: American white-collar work culture is very much about creating the illusion of how busy you are , and “subtracting” elements doesn’t help you get there.

I’m just out here trying to figure out my own path through The Christmas Tree Effect, you know? I’d appreciate any help you are willing to provide.