“The secret to doing good research is always to be a little underemployed. You waste years by not being able to waste hours.”
A phrase from Amos Tversky, which I already quoted here last month.
But there’s another meaning you could take from it:
Giving yourself the time and energy to work on interesting projects outside of your day job.
When “overemployed,” your schedule demands attention from your job’s obligations, meetings, and deadlines, leaving you with little room for your own interests and ideas.
Being “underemployed” means you have more time to yourself, so you can foster your creativity and quench your curiosity.
That’s why Austin Kleon appreciates his time working at a public library in Cleveland, Ohio. After college, he worked around 20 hours a week. But the time spent outside of his work was where he could focus on his writing and creative projects, teaching himself skills to move on to web design.
A few years later, he would publish his first book, Newspaper Blackout, and then his next book, Steal Like an Artist, which would later become a New York Times Bestseller.
Because Kleon was “underemployed,” his creative breakthroughs sprouted from his side projects. He had the freedom to reflect, explore, and discover ideas that would lead him to create one of my favorite books.
Busyness is the enemy of breakthroughs.