Working hard is keeping you poor in everything that actually matters.
You spend most of your day slumped at a desk pushing emails and having meetings about meetings. None of it is about anything you care about.
The activities that are meaningful to you – things that bring you joy, creating and making, spending time with loved ones – are forced into the margins of your life.
Which is approximately pre 7am and post 8pm on a weekday, plus the meagre pickings left over from a 48 hour weekend, once you’ve done the chores, called family, met the demands of those who depend on you, and slept.
Time warps in an office, in both directions.
Days full of bitty bittiness - jumping from one task to another - are over before you’ve achieved anything. Flow states and deep work are things you haven’t experienced for years.
Or, the minutes stretch into hours and you wonder how it can possibly only be half past three when you’ve been sitting in that chair for what feels like an eternity. And you still need to factor in the commute home.
There is no day of the week that is not preceded or followed by a day back in the office.
Just when you feel like your mind, body and spirit is coming back to you - right around Sunday afternoon - you realise it all starts again tomorrow morning.
And you’ve barely had a chance to put a wash on.
For nearly a decade, I was a London corporate worker with the shiny BMW on the driveway, spending sunny days indoors staring at a computer screen surrounded by various iterations of plastic.
I developed a nagging suspicion that my role was irrelevant and futile, so I decided to conduct an experiment: I resolved to stop doing any work.
Half an hour before my weekly one-to-ones, I’d spend 15 minutes knocking up a page of something, sending a couple of emails, delivering my updates in a convincing tone.
‘I’m making great progress... the stakeholders are on board…’
My manager would nod.
‘That all sounds great! Carry on.’
What I actually spent my time doing? Meticulously planning ten months of travel on a spreadsheet.
I did no work for an entire year. The experiment ended not because anyone exposed my idling, but because I finally left.
My theory had been proven: my job was a farce. Which meant a big portion of my life was too.
But it wasn’t an entirely wasted year, because the experiment taught me a valuable lesson about the nature of modern work:
Modern work is a game, a theatre performance.
Once you understand the core rule – that a performance of perceived effort matters more than actual output – everything changes.
And why would you want to play the game in the first place?
Because winning means spending more time on things that actually make you feel alive.
Below are the 6 steps to win at The Game of Modern Work.
But before we dive in, let me be clear about something.
The purpose of this piece isn’t to make you feel bad about having a bullshit job, if that’s where you find yourself.
That’s not my objective.
My objective is to help you:
realise your situation
see it as an untapped opportunity
Perhaps you’ve been dutifully trying to fill your time at your desk with more tasks because you’re being paid for it, so you feel like you should be doing more.
What I’m saying is: reframe the whole situation.
Don’t try to find more things to do. Don’t try to make your existing tasks fill the entire week.
Go in the opposite direction.
Do only what’s required. So it well, do it fast, and spend the rest of your time on your own stuff.
This is the first step in engineering change - it starts with your mindset and how you view the situation.
See it as an opportunity, not something to ignore or pretend isn’t your reality.
The first step of affecting any situation for a more positive outcome is becoming aware of the situation in the first place.
The late anthropologist David Graeber coined the term ‘bullshit job’ in his 2013 essay that went viral with over 1 million views.
Graeber’s definition of a bullshit job:
‘…a job that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence, even though they’re obliged to pretend otherwise.’
These aren’t nurses, teachers, or refuse workers doing essential work.
They’re HR consultants, corporate lawyers, administrators, marketing coordinators – roles where if the position were eliminated tomorrow, it would make no discernible difference in the world.
I think some people have a deep-down sense that their job fits this description, but they don’t want to admit it.
Totally understandable.
Because all sorts of existential questions come up when you do, like: what have I just spent the past 20 years of my life actually doing?
But that doesn’t mean the topic can be avoided.
The alternative is continuing to pretend from a place of ignorance. Whereas what you want to do is still pretend, but from a place of knowledge.
Now the situation has tipped in your favour.
If you’re worried you’re the only one who thinks this about their work, you most definitely are not.
A YouGov poll found 37% of British workers thought their jobs didn’t contribute meaningfully to the world. Graeber estimated 20-50% of all jobs are ‘bullshit jobs’.
Apply the test: if your job were eliminated tomorrow, would anyone notice or care?
If not, acknowledge it. Own it.
There’s no shame – and everything becomes easier after the initial discomfort.
Once you’ve accepted your job has no purpose, understand that this knowledge means you’ve now entered the game.
Which is a good thing, because games have winners and losers.
And games also have rules. If you know the rules, you’re far more likely to win.
Winning, in this case, means spending less of your precious and finite time on this glorious planet doing pointless busy work and more of it on things that bring you joy, help you grow, or benefit your community.
The main game rule is this:
Spend as little time as possible meeting your contracted deliverables while still doing them to a competent level.
Do this by increasing your efficiency.
Complete all your contractual tasks at the start of the week when you’re most rested – knock them out quickly and well.
Then — without guilt — spend the rest of the time on your own stuff.
Your perceived performance stays high because you’ve completed what was asked of you. But do not go above and beyond. There is no sense and no reward in handing over more of yourself than is requested.
Do what’s required, do it well, and let your superiors believe it took the full allocated time – even if it only took you 1/20th of it.
Think of a parallel system, the education system.
Many students learn how to pass exams more than they learn the actual content in a course. I recall memorising a physics formula at university I understood absolutely nothing about, simply because I knew it would appear in the exam.
I passed.
The game rewards performers, not hard workers.
Nurses and teachers work extremely hard and are undervalued. And yet office workers who understand perceived performance, but in reality produce less meaningful output, get the higher salaries.
What does performing look like? It’s theatre. You’re acting the role of believing your job is important and that you think everyone else’s is too.
Your objective is simple: make your line manager feel like they don’t even have to think about you because you’re just getting on with stuff. You want to make their lives as easy as possible.
This is key.
If they believe you’re working on whatever project they think you’re working on, and you support this with evidence of having met the deliverables, they’ll most likely be relieved they can just let you get on with it.
Figure out what it is they need to see to relax.
A well-prepared set of notes? A 6-page PowerPoint about a conference you attended? Whatever it is that makes them think ‘brilliant, John Smith is working great on their own, I don’t have to check in’ — deliver that.
You want them to report to their own manager that you’re meeting all your deliverables without them having to worry.
Confidence is key. Looking busy is the universal language in offices; use this to your advantage.
A spreadsheet is a great ruse – I planned ten months of travel on one mammoth spreadsheet and everyone thought it was work-related. Leave a paper trail: send a few emails during the week to show you’ve reached out to people.
As long as you look busy and make your line manager’s life easier, you’re winning.
Now you’ve completed your deliverables efficiently and your manager thinks you’re working away diligently - what do you actually do with all that reclaimed time?
It’s your duty as a living and breathing human being to use this time well.
And by that I mean spend it on things that bring you joy, help you feel fulfilled, make you feel like you’ve actually done something meaningful with your 7-8 hours.
Perhaps you’ve helped someone else, grown personally, learned a new skill, done research on something that matters to you.
I have a friend with a remote bullshit job who coaches football during work hours because that’s his passion. An airport kiosk worker I met was learning a new language on their computer between the rare customers. I had my travel spreadsheet behemoth.
If you’re office-based surrounded by others, your activities need to work at a computer. If you’re remote, you have more freedom - physical projects, skill-building, anything.
Use this time to figure out an exit strategy if you want one. Research starting a business or finding a different role. Work on creative projects — reading, writing, learning.
Some people wouldn’t know how to spend tomorrow if given it off work. This lack of meaning is the greatest global epidemic no one is talking about; one for another essay.
But it’s also exactly why you need this reclaimed time — to finally discover what ignites you.
I’m a firm believer that life shouldn’t feel that hard. When it does, it’s often because we’re pushing against the natural flow of things rather than letting go and aligning with what actually wants to happen.
Nature never wastes energy. It does exactly what’s needed, nothing more.
Water always finds the easiest route back to the sea — it doesn’t force itself uphill. If you have a fire approaching both a eucalyptus tree and a cork oak, the eucalyptus ignites because that’s the path of least resistance. Nature doesn’t waste energy trying to force the cork oak to burn.
Think about your garden.
You can spend enormous energy coddling high-maintenance plants that need constant attention, or you can welcome the weeds — plants that flourish with zero intervention.
Many are edible, medicinal, beautiful. And they’re highly efficient.
The thing you need to remember is you are a part of Nature. You might not yet know your purpose in life, but one thing is for certain: it isn’t to have meetings, pay off debts, then die.
Don’t waste energy on work that resists your soul.
Your soul knows this work is futile. The natural state is to do the minimum needed for survival (your deliverables) and let the rest of your energy flow where it actually wants to go, towards what makes you come alive.
That’s not cheating the system. That’s being intelligent enough to follow how the universe actually works.
I can hear some of you objecting: isn’t it deceitful to let your employer pay you for doing stuff that has nothing to do with their work?
Here’s my response: if you went to your line manager tomorrow and said ‘Hey there Graham! I’ve completed everything you’ve given me in a tenth of the time, do you have any more work for me?’ - you’d stress them out.
The truth is, most of the time they won’t have anything else for you to do. You might think you’re helping, but you’re actually making their lives more difficult.
Now they’re obliged to figure out what the hell else to do with you.
If they can’t, the worst-case scenario is you’re forcing them to acknowledge that your role is meaningless - which you already know, but they likely don’t want to lay you off.
Too much admin.
You’ve given them the very difficult task of having to justify your role even though you’ve just proven you completed it in a fraction of the time.
So if you’re considering other people’s feelings and lives, it’s for everyone’s benefit if you continue with the charade and keep playing the role. It’s not deceitful for them to be paying you when you’re not working on their stuff.
You’re actually helping the system work.
It’s not your fault if you’re efficient. It’s not your fault if the role shouldn’t actually exist.
Some of you aren’t exactly sitting idle in your bullshit job — you’re doing the work of three people because enlightened colleagues keep quitting, aren’t being replaced and you’re absorbing their tasks.
You’re working evenings and weekends and spending less time with your family, simply to meet the demands of the extra bullshit.
This is a different problem: lots of busy work - meetings about meetings, firefighting, sending emails - but nothing of real substance or meaning.
It feels like a lot of work, but you’re not actually achieving anything.
If this is you, the efficiency principles still apply where possible.
But honestly, this might be your sign that it’s time to get the hell out.
A bullshit job with capacity to slack is one thing. A bullshit job that’s stealing your life and health? That’s unsustainable.
This essay is for those of you with hours to fill at a desk, not those drowning. If you’re drowning, that’s a different conversation entirely.
Your focus needs to be an exit strategy.
The key to surviving an unfulfilling job (other than leaving it) isn’t working harder - it’s understanding that modern work is just a game.
Once you know the core rule - that perceived performance is valued more than actual hard work - everything changes.
You can reclaim hours of your week. Not by quitting or setting it all alight, but by working efficiently in order to spend the majority of your ‘office time’ on things that bring you joy and help you realise the life you actually want.
I did no work for a year and nobody noticed.
That taught me the rules. Now I work late into the night on projects I care about because I want to, not because I have to. I experience flow states daily.
I’ve built a life I don’t need to escape from.
You’re not being deceitful. You’re being intelligent. You’re following nature’s principle: don’t waste energy where it doesn’t matter.
Stop grinding, start playing. If I can do it, you can do it too.
What's your experience with bullshit jobs, ever had one? Have you tried tactical slacking? Let me know!
I’m Leyla. I write about building a life you don't need to escape from, amongst other things. I send this once a week to 8000+ readers — join them if you’d like it in your inbox.
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