fake work

things that feel like you're doing something, but you're actually not.

Have you ever noticed yourself reaching for your phone first thing in the morning and spending 15 minutes scrolling through every single social media and messaging app on your phone to check your notifications?

It fools your brain into thinking that you did something first thing in the morning.

Things like

• checking emails
• replying to messages
• continuously scrolling the internet

Are all examples of fake work - work that feels like you're doing something, but you're actually not.

Sometimes fake work can be an avoidance mechanism for real work. Like sometimes when you know you have a daunting bug to fix and have no idea where to start, you find yourself scrolling through all your new emails and slack messages first instead. Soon, an hour has gone by and you forgot what task you meant to do when opening your laptop in the very first place. Yet you still feel like you've done something because you've hit all those emails.

why fake work, doesn't work

• Too much of it can reduce the allure of doing the real thing. Fake work are examples of easy quick wins that give you a small hit of dopamine each time and sense of gratification. Real work takes time to get there.
• Switching costs. Most of these fake work tasks are distracting and can clutter your mind, making it harder to focus on meaningful work. Once you get into the loop of checking your notifications, it's hard to switch out of it.
• You'll have less time to do it all. You know when you have those weeks where you feel like you've done so much and have been so busy, but have gotten so little done? Filling our plate with too much fake work can stress you out when you finally have to tackle the big tasks

how to break the cycle

• I saw my friend Valentina write about not checking her phone notifications until after 12:00pm: I have yet to fully implement this in practice, but I love the idea of it because it allows you to get deep work done in the morning before your phone interrupts your cycle.
• Batch fake work tasks & calls in the same period of time. I like to do these ideally in the afternoon after the post-lunch haze. We've all seen the recovering from meeting calendar meme - online meetings can unfortunately be draining at times. One of the companies I worked at in the past famously had Monday as an unofficial meeting day and I actually found it pretty helpful to get out most calls on that one day in the week to help align priorities for the rest of the week.

• Do things on commutes if you have one: The biggest blessing in disguise I have is the long commute I do from sf to south bay. Some people think I'm silly for putting up with the commute but I actually don't mind it because it actually forces me to carve out some time to get small tasks out of the way on the train like replying to messages, reviewing pr comments and prepping for meetings.
• Time blocking. I find that actually blocking time on my calendar for working on a certain thing helps a lot with helping my brain decide what to actually work on. Doing it beforehand helps me figure out which are the more higher priority tasks rather than me gravitating towards picking the task that seems easy and fun to do in the moment.
• Focused retreats. One of the big motivations behind Rabbitholeathon is that with work, school and other responsibilities, the weekend retreat is creates an opportunity to dive into the rabbitholes you haven't gotten the chance to dig into for the weekend without distractions. The act of travelling to a more remote location and dedicating the entire weekend to one thing makes the exploration much more productive and fun! It's similar to the concept Cal Newport mentioned in Deep Work where J.K Rowling holed herself up into a fancy hotel to finish writing the Deathly Hallows, and Bill Gates' cabin think-weeks.
• Have a ritual to get into deep work: I just know when I've put my headphones on, turn on my favourite playlist, go to a library or cafe, and turn on do not disturb I'm ready to lock in. Kind of similar to the hair ribbon Violet Baudelaire from The Series of Unfortunate Events always puts on when she needs to think or work on her inventions.