What’s in it for me? A blueprint for more joyful work – and a more fulfilling life.
Somewhere along the way, the modern workplace convinced us that exhaustion is a badge of honor.
It’s become normal to skip lunch, to check email before saying good morning to your partner, to see your kids as “interruptions” rather than part of the life you’re working for.
We treat meetings like an endless endurance sport, plow through illness instead of resting, and wear stress like a tailored suit.
The strange thing is, none of this makes us better at our jobs.
In fact, it makes us worse.
A tired mind is less creative, an overbooked schedule leaves no room for insight, and a culture obsessed with being “always on” eventually burns out even the most committed people.
There is an alternative – one where work remains challenging and meaningful without undermining health, relationships, or personal well-being.
It involves treating the body as the essential tool for high-quality work and focusing on the most valuable tasks rather than being consumed by low-value activity.
In this Blink, you’ll learn how joy, connection, and self-care can enhance performance; why the people you work with can matter as much as the work itself; and how to create the conditions for brilliant results without falling into the trap of busyness.
Joy makes work valuable
Your work shouldn’t just be a grind you endure for your paycheck.
You get paid because you create value, not because the job is painful.
At its simplest, work is making or doing something that others appreciate.
The problem is that truth is buried under layers of unnecessary clutter that drain the joy out of it – think pointless meetings, rigid dress codes, and endless approval loops.
Strip those away and you’re left with something you might actually look forward to doing.
A useful question to ask yourself is, What did I hire my job to do for me?
Some people hire their job to stretch their skills, to give them interesting puzzles, or to surround themselves with great colleagues.
Others hire it to give them moments of laughter during the day.
Seeing work in this light shifts it from a transaction to a source of meaning and enjoyment.
The pressure to make work meaningful often comes with another trap – the idea that it only counts if it’s big enough to change the world.
We’re told to scale our impact, reach millions, make a dent in the universe.
That might sound inspiring, but it also undervalues the quieter, human-sized contributions that shape lives in lasting ways.
A well-known anecdote tells of a NASA janitor who described his role as helping put a man on the moon.
While often presented as an example of linking any job to a grand mission, it can also be viewed as showing the value of supporting colleagues in practical, everyday ways.
That might not earn applause at a leadership seminar, but it’s the kind of everyday value that actually makes workplaces – and lives – better.
When we glorify scale, we unintentionally downgrade jobs that thrive on personal connection, like teaching or nursing.
A kindergarten teacher might influence only 30 kids a year, which doesn’t sound impressive next to a million-user app, but ask any adult about a teacher who changed their life and you’ll hear about an impact more powerful than numbers alone.
You don’t need to bend history to make your work matter.
If what you do makes someone’s day a little easier, brighter, or more joyful, that’s meaningful.
And when you approach work in a way that nourishes you – whether that’s through learning, camaraderie, creativity, or simply knowing you’ve made life better for someone – you’ll not only be creating value for others, but also making work itself a product worth “buying” every day.
And that’s the kind of deal worth showing up for.
The people you work with matter as much as the work itself
A lot of career advice tells you to follow your passion, chase growth opportunities, or take the highest-paying role.
That’s fine, but there’s a simpler question that can change your entire work experience: Do you actually like the people you’ll be spending your days with?
You’ll spend a huge slice of your life with colleagues, so it makes sense to choose them as carefully as you choose the work itself.
Even the dullest tasks become bearable – sometimes even fun – if you’re surrounded by people whose company you enjoy.
Imagine shovelling manure: alone, it’s miserable; with people you like, it’s a shared story you’ll still be laughing about years later.
Friendship at work doesn’t mean expecting your colleagues to know you like a lifelong best friend would.
But rather, enjoying their company, respecting them, and sharing a willingness to show up for each other.
That’s not just feel-good fluff.
Studies show that having a close friend at work boosts creativity, engagement, and productivity, and even improves unexpected things like safety and efficiency.
In other words, friendship isn’t just good for you – it’s good for business.
Strong, friendly teams don’t happen by accident, though.
They’re built through small, consistent habits that make people feel seen and valued.
One of the simplest is a daily check-in.
Before diving into the day’s agenda, everyone shares how they’re doing on a scale of zero to five, then takes 30 seconds to explain why.
It could be about work, personal life, or something random – maybe someone’s a two because their back hurts, or a five because they’re heading on holiday, or a three because they’ve just realised their socks don’t match.
This tiny ritual has an outsized impact.
It creates psychological safety – once you’ve spoken early in a meeting, it’s easier to speak again.
It clears mental clutter, too: voicing what’s on your mind helps you focus on the work ahead.
And it prevents misunderstandings: if someone's off their game, you know why.
It also fosters inclusion: when everyone gets to speak at least once, no one stays invisible.
But most importantly, it reinforces the idea that you’re working with people, not just job titles.
When you genuinely care about your colleagues – and they care about you – even stressful projects feel lighter.
The work may still be hard, but it stops feeling like a grind.
It becomes a shared effort, something you’re in together.
And when you find yourself laughing with your team in the middle of a messy job, you realise that liking the people you work with might be the smartest career choice you ever made.
Your body is the tool that makes all your work possible, so treat it like one
If you were about to play a grand piano at a packed concert hall, you wouldn’t slap some motor oil on the keys and call it a warm-up.
Yet most people treat their bodies – the only instrument they’ll ever have to do their work – exactly like that.
The expectation is to keep showing up, no matter how tired, stiff, or run-down you are, as if performance and well-being aren’t linked.
But they are.
Sleep functions both as rest and as a means of enhancing performance.
Without it, your focus drops, your productivity slides, and your creativity tanks.
Leaders become less charismatic, which makes them harder to inspire others and harder to be inspired by.
Sleep-deprived teams make more mistakes, take longer to solve problems, and have less patience for each other.
In short, you’re not only worse at your job, you’re also less pleasant to work with.
The problem is that the way many workplaces run makes it nearly impossible to care for yourself properly.
Back-to-back meetings, late-night deadlines, and the constant push for more leave people with little time or energy to actually recover.
In that state, even well-intentioned perks – a subsidised gym membership, a mindfulness app – feel like a joke.
When you’re exhausted, you don’t want to hit the treadmill; you want chips and queso.
Addressing burnout requires removing its causes rather than adding additional wellness initiatives on top of existing strain.
Imagine if instead of squeezing every drop of energy out of employees, companies reduced revenue targets, hired extra staff, or gave the savings from pared-down perks back as cash.
People would have more time to rest, exercise, or just live their lives.
The return?
Better work from healthier, more engaged people.
And while this is a leadership issue, it’s also a personal one.
You can’t control every meeting or deadline, but you can decide to treat your body like the precision tool it is.
That might mean protecting your sleep like you’d protect an important client appointment.
It might mean noticing when you’re running on empty and stepping away before mistakes pile up.
Caring for your body isn’t indulgent – it’s strategic.
A well-rested, well-fuelled, well-moved body can think better, solve faster, and connect more deeply.
It can lead without snapping, create without stalling, and collaborate without resentment.
That’s not just good for you: it’s good for everyone you work with.
A broken instrument doesn’t just sound bad, it makes the whole performance fall flat.
There are plenty of solid reasons to aim for brilliant work.
It can grow a healthy, high-performing business.
It can create impact in the world.
But perhaps the most energising reason is simply that it’s one of the coolest parts of being human.
We get to dream something up, bring it into existence, and watch it make someone else’s day better.
Brilliant work makes life richer – busyness kills it
Whether you’re designing software, baking bread, or running a classroom, your work can be an expression of your imagination and your stamp on the world.
Think of it less like fulfilling a job description and more like playing in the most elaborate sandbox ever built.
You can try things, share them, and say, “Look what I made!
” That’s not indulgence – it’s contribution.
You’re the only person with your exact mix of experiences, ideas, and quirks.
If you don’t put them into your work, they’re gone for good.
But if brilliance is so fulfilling, why don’t we all operate that way?
The biggest killer is busyness.
Busyness isn’t just having a lot to do – it’s a set of patterns that crowd out the mental space creativity needs.
Sometimes it’s a simple math problem: you’ve got 30 minutes of tasks to cram into 15 minutes, so you rush and tick boxes instead of thinking deeply.
Other times it’s a strategy problem: you take on extra tasks that aren’t really essential because no one’s quite sure what to prioritise.
There’s also a power problem: in many workplaces, managers have more influence than the people actually producing the work.
Makers need long stretches of focused time, but meetings and status updates win.
Finally, there’s the psychology problem: busyness can feel good.
Being “in demand” feeds the ego, and checklists are comforting compared to uncertain, meaningful work.
The trouble is, brilliance needs breathing room.
You can’t design a beautiful solution or make a leap of insight if you’re darting from one call to the next, holding in a bathroom break.
In that state, your brain thinks it’s under attack, so it focuses on survival, not innovation.
The most effective approach is to create space by reducing nonessential tasks and meetings, and by increasing trust in the people carrying out the work.
When you’re not sprinting just to stay upright, you can pause, look around, and spot ideas worth chasing.
Do brilliant work because it makes you, and life, more alive.
Protect the space it needs.
Everything else – business success, positive impact, even a healthier culture – flows from there.
The simplest way to escape the treadmill of endless tasks is to crowd it out with work you actually want to do.
When you choose projects that energise you, the less important stuff naturally falls away.
In this context, fun means engaging in meaningful work that merits being done well.
A good test is to ask, What would be the most fun to do?
If the answer makes you feel a spark, it’s probably the right direction.
Fear can be another useful compass.
Often, the work you’re most hesitant to take on is where the biggest breakthroughs happen.
Less but better work starts with excitement
Pitching a risky idea, trying a new approach, or taking on a role you’re not fully sure you can handle – these are the moments that create distinctive, high-impact results.
What doesn’t work is playing it safe to avoid mistakes or keep up appearances for bosses, boards, or shareholders.
That mindset produces predictable, forgettable work.
At the organisational level, strategic planning has its place, but it can’t be the only driver.
Too often, leaders forget they have the agency to choose work that’s not just strategically sound, but enlivening.
Vision gets diluted by process, and the result is a steady but uninspired output.
The irony is that customers, investors, and teams all respond better when the people leading the work are genuinely excited about it.
Creating that kind of work requires more than just picking the right projects – it also needs space to think.
That’s where the idea of a “Do Nothing Day” comes in – a day designated for reflection and idea development without the requirement to produce output.
Use it to ask better questions: Are we working on the right things?
Is there a more elegant solution?
What would make this more captivating?
You can dress it up as an “ideation block” or “visioning time” if you like, but the purpose is to step back from constant execution and recalibrate.
In business, thinking is often undervalued compared to doing.
But months of intense activity can’t make up for a weak idea.
Stepping away from output for a day might feel uncomfortable at first, especially in cultures obsessed with visible productivity.
Yet it’s in those pauses that real clarity – and the best ideas – emerge.
Doing less but better means making deliberate choices: follow what excites you, lean into what scares you, and protect time for clear, open-ended thinking.
That combination not only produces stronger results – it turns work into something you’re proud to put your name on.
Final summary
In this Blink to Today Was Fun by Bree Goff, you’ve learned that work matters most when it’s joyful, creating value through meaning, connection, and care.
Liking your colleagues can turn hard tasks into shared wins, while treating your body as the vital tool it is keeps you sharp and collaborative.
Brilliant work needs space, courage, and freedom from busyness.
Choose projects that excite or challenge you, make time to think without producing, and protect your well-being.
Focus on what matters and nurture relationships to create work worth doing and a life worth living.
Okay, that’s it for this Blink.
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