What is the main message of The Joy of Work?

The main message of The Joy of Work is to find happiness and fulfillment in our professional lives.

Who is the author of The Joy of Work?

The author of The Joy of Work is Bruce Daisley.

Career & Success

The Joy of Work Book Summary - The Joy of Work Book explained in key points

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The Joy of Work summary

Name: The Joy of Work
Rating: 4.3 (201 reviews)
Author: Bruce Daisley

Bruce Daisley

30 Ways to Fix Your Work Culture and Fall in Love With Your Job Again

4.3 (201 ratings)

23 mins

Brief summary

The Joy of Work by Bruce Daisley is a practical guide that reveals the secrets to finding happiness in the workplace through achievable, evidence-based techniques. It helps create a happier, more productive working environment.

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Work Culture

Table of Contents

The Joy of Work
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Discover some easy-to-implement ideas for improving workplace productivity.

There are some days when getting through a day at work can feel like an epic struggle. You’ll be facing a fast-approaching deadline while coworkers seem to be lined up at your desk vying for attention, and the number of unread emails in your inbox is reaching staggering new heights. It all seems like more than any one person can possibly manage!

Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to reclaim peace of mind – and, while you’re at it, increase productivity. While finding ways of working undisturbed can be part of the solution, as author Bruce Daisley makes clear, there is a less intuitive part of productivity: the social aspect.

Yes, we need to block out distractions while we work, but there are limits to how much time we should spend working before the harmful effects of exhaustion set in. Plus, what we do when we take our much-needed breaks can also have a tremendous impact on our well-being and overall efficiency.

In these blinks you’ll find

how to get a productive day started before 11:00 a.m.;
why you may want to take your next meeting outdoors; and
why it’s important to laugh, even when things are grim.

Distractions are detrimental to work efficiency and a Monk Mode Morning can help counter this problem.

If you’ve worked in an office, you may have had bosses or company executives that would stay hidden away in her office for hours on end. Perhaps you even thought poorly of them for being so detached and unsociable. However, if we look at the reasons behind good working habits, those aloof bosses may have been onto something.

For starters, keeping your workspace free of distractions is a key component to working efficiently.

In 2011, Danish management researcher J.H. Pejtersen conducted a study that revealed how people working in open-plan office spaces tended to take more sick days than workers who have private offices. The study also showed that those working in an open office space tend to be interrupted from their work on an average of once every three minutes.

These breaks in concentration aren’t just due to colleagues popping over to ask you a question – they also take the form of distracting conversations coming from neighboring desks and cubicles. What makes these interruptions so bad for your efficiency is that once your concentration is broken, it takes a long time for you to get back to that same level of focus.

This is the same reason why you shouldn’t try to juggle too many tasks at the same time. In his book Quality Software Management, the computer scientist Gerald Weinberg found that software managers who tried to jump between five different projects during the same day would only manage to work at a quarter of the efficiency they’d have achieved if they stuck to one project at a time.

One excellent way of reducing distractions is to practice the Monk Mode Morning, which involves shutting out all incoming calls and visitors until 11:00 a.m.

At first, your office mates may not appreciate this distraction barricade, but if you explain that it isn’t about being antisocial, but rather an attempt to put in a few hours of uninterrupted work before engaging with phone calls and meetings, then they’ll likely understand.

If Monk Mode Morning sounds appealing but you don’t have an office door to enforce it, you can try using headphones until 11:00 a.m. in order to create your own space.

Walking boosts creative thinking, so walking meetings can be a great productivity tool.

If you’re feeling stuck with a creative task, especially one with a quickly approaching deadline, you may not feel like stepping away from your work to go for a stroll. Yet, as J.K. Rowling, author of the world-famous Harry Potter books says, “There’s nothing like a night-time stroll to give you ideas.”

As it turns out, Rowling’s claim about the creative benefits of going for a walk are supported by science.

Too much connection and information can lead to hurry anxiety, but there are ways of quieting the pace.

It’s common to feel like you’re in a rush or under pressure to get things done, but did you know that having a persistent level of stress can affect your behavior?

Just think of those times when you’ve been waiting for the elevator and feel the need to keep pressing the call button again and again, even though you know it won’t make the elevator arrive any faster. This is a typical example of what’s known as hurry anxiety.

There’s a limit to how much work can be done, so it’s best to work less than 40 hours a week.

In a 2013 interview, British tennis champion Andy Murray explained just how exhausting a tennis match can be. As he explained it, physical exhaustion is only part of it. A tennis match also results in a great deal of mental exhaustion, due to having to make so many split-second tactical decisions.

As Murray’s comments suggest, we are only capable of making so many decisions before we’re left feeling exhausted, which is why there’s a limit to how much work we can do before our productivity begins to suffer. Ultimately, the more decisions we’re asked to make, the more exhausted we become and the more we’ll gravitate toward undemanding tasks.

New technology makes it possible to observe workplace dynamics and see how important social interactions are for productivity.

Have you ever dreamed of having an all-seeing eye and monitoring every worker in your company to see how they’re really spending their time? If the answer is yes, then your dream may already be a reality thanks to the new technology behind sociometric badges.

Developed by Alex Pentland, a professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, sociometric badges combine traditional ID badges with smartphone technology, and make it possible to monitor workplace dynamics. Now, all the data behind an employee’s movements and interactions can be recorded and analyzed to reveal valuable information about individual behavior, such as how much time an employee spends in face-to-face conversations, as well as group behavior.

A social break gives an unexpected boost to productivity, as social interaction balances out work challenges.

Finding the right data to monitor productivity can vary from job to job. But at a call center, the information is pretty straightforward: there, we can easily see the number of calls being made and the success rate of those calls. And because these numbers are so apparent, employees at call centers feel a lot of pressure to spend more time making more calls to boost those numbers.

However, this approach isn’t very effective. It may sound counterintuitive, but a better way to boost productivity in a call center is to give people more social breaks.

If communication is not flowing in your company, it’s worth organizing company social gatherings.

There’s one group of people who shouldn’t get left out when it comes to the productive benefit of social interaction at the workplace, and that’s the employees who are working remotely. While working from home may make it easier to enter Monk Mode and block out distractions, it doesn’t help when it comes to taking social breaks.

While they didn’t announce their reason, the lack of communication between colleagues is likely why Yahoo recently launched a policy that forbade remote work. Yahoo and other companies know that, when employees spend too much time away from company headquarters, it can hurt productivity.

Laughter cheers up employees in army hospitals, so it’s worth giving laughter a chance in offices, too.

There’s a good chance you laughed a lot more as a child than you do now. Children can be such constant gigglers that they even get on the nerves of more serious adults. But the fact of the matter is, every adult could benefit from more laughter in their lives.

As we’ve come to find out, laughing is an effective and valuable way of coping with life’s challenges – even if you’re experiencing the stresses of war.

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What is The Joy of Work about?

The Joy of Work (2019) offers tips and techniques for making work less stressful and a lot more fun and productive. It examines many of the productivity pitfalls that can be found in today’s workplace, and provides solutions for both increased efficiency and more peace of mind. It also provides ideas on how to improve the atmosphere in the office and with your colleagues in order to engage in effective and harmonious teamwork.

The Joy of Work Review

The Joy of Work (2019) by Bruce Daisley is a refreshing exploration of how to find happiness and fulfillment in the workplace. Here's why we highly recommend this book:

With practical strategies and insightful anecdotes, it provides actionable advice on improving productivity, fostering creativity, and creating a positive work culture.
Drawing on scientific research and real-life experiences, it offers a well-rounded perspective on the challenges and opportunities in today's work environment.
The book's witty and relatable tone makes it an enjoyable read, capturing our attention with its engaging stories and practical tips.

Best quote from The Joy of Work

So next time youre in a lift, press the button and then wait. Those extra few seconds might be your path to a brilliant new idea.

—Bruce Daisley

Who should read The Joy of Work?

Employees
Managers and CEOs
Coaches and psychologists

About the Author

Bruce Daisley was born in Birmingham and began his career writing for magazines and radio. He went on to work for giant companies like Twitter and Google, and currently heads the European branch of Twitter. Daisley is also committed to enjoyment at work, something he speaks about on his podcast eatsleepworkrepeat.fm.

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