Seth Godin spoke about the never-ending nature of work in his recent blog “Dancing on the edge of finished”. There is no end of the day, no bottom of the in-tray, it’s all going on all the time. You can always be doing something, always be doing more.
This is a big temptation when it’s your own business. Or when you are desperate to succeed in a new role. When do you stop? How do you tell when you’ve done enough? What if you miss something?
This can be source of great worry and stress. Or it can be a great release.
If everything is going on all the time, you are guaranteed to miss something because you can’t be there all the time. So why worry about it?
If ‘the office is always open’, so to speak, it doesn’t matter when you are ‘in’. You can design your day to suit you (as long as you don’t cheat yourself on the effort you put in).
You get to decide what ‘done’ is, when ‘finished’ means ‘finished’. That’s a great freedom. You just have to have the courage to exercise it and take responsibility for yourself.