The Dangers of Being Your Own Boss

Technology is making routine jobs obsolete and shifting more workers towards knowledge-based occupations. Increased automatization and the onset of artificial intelligence (AI) will accelerate this trend in the near future. This means fewer 9-to-5 jobs with clearly defined, routine tasks (selling tickets to customers behind a counter or driving a bus) and more jobs with fuzzy, creative objectives where you are your own boss.

One extreme case is the hundreds of thousands of “content creators” trying to make a living in social media or the increasing numbers of creative startups in the technology sector. But one does not need to go so far. Jobs in programming (coding), design, marketing, science, and many other fields are all based on knowledge and intellectual creativity, with a great degree of autonomy in how one organizes one's work.

And here is the problem. In many of those jobs, you are the master of your own time. There is no queue of customers in front of you but rather a rapidly changing list of projects and responsibilities that you need to juggle. And with this increased freedom comes a host of problems: lack of clear objectives, procrastination, unclear work-life boundaries (especially if you work part of the time at home), and generally feeling overwhelmed. And the worst of it all is that, most likely, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

If this rings a bell for you, keep reading. While there are no miracle solutions for those problems, there are a number of known pitfalls that you can avoid and a few tricks that might help you right away.

Pitfalls and Dangers

If you feel overwhelmed and starved for time, there will be a number of temptations to make the most of your time. Unfortunately, some of those can be dangerous for your productivity and your job satisfaction.

The first thing you need to remember is that multi-tasking does not work. The human brain just does not work like that. Neuroscience and the psychology of attention have obtained very clear data on the “mind’s bottleneck,” which shows that you cannot execute two different cognitive (intellectual, knowledge-based) tasks at once. And most tasks are cognitive when you are your own boss. You cannot pay attention to an online meeting while answering email. You cannot listen to a podcast while error-proofing a document. If you try to multitask, what your brain actually does is just rapidly shift your attention from one to the other task and back, making more errors in both as you do so. So don’t try. Identify your tasks, make clear to yourself what you are working on at any given time, and devote your full attention to that.

The second big danger is unclear boundaries, especially if you work at home. You might end up being unproductive because you have so many of your home comforts at arm’s length or exhausting yourself with insanely long hours because “you are home.” Set boundaries. If you can, set up a room as a separate office that you use only for work (in some countries, that might actually entitle you to a tax break). If you do not have the space for that, try to arrange a workspace by setting your laptop, work files, etc., in a prearranged way, always in the same spot, even if you pack everything away at the end of the (work)day.

Keep a journal of when you sit down to work and when you call it a day, and write down the breaks you take. You should take breaks, but make sure you know how many and how frequently. At the end of the day, review your journal and mentally slip into the role of “your boss” to be conscious of your work practices.

The third danger is interruptions, or, more importantly, allowing for too many interruptions. If you are responsible for organizing your own work, you will always be fearful of missing out on something, and you will feel the pressure to be always available or always check for updates in your field. But remember that, in the knowledge sector, all that is not actually tangible work.

You need to protect your time. Set interruption-free working windows. If you don’t live alone, inform your roommates or significant others of those windows, or use signals (a sign on the door might be enough). Shut down your phone and your online systems (Slack, Teams, etc.). Close your email program, or take measures to reduce the inflow. You would be surprised at how many scientists have set up private email addresses for work, communicated only selectively, and banned their official addresses to a “check once a day” status (yes, I am doing that).

Productivity Essential Reads

The Dangers of Confusing Activity With Productivity

12 Simple Ways to Increase Your Productivity

Organize Yourself

To avoid wasting time, and very especially to avoid feeling overwhelmed, it is important to have a minimum of organization in your work. But do not go down the rabbit hole of reading dozens of self-help books or implementing a “system” just yet. Without professional help, that might easily turn into another task or consume entire days of your time as you watch one random video after another on social media. Tirelessly looking for the best way to organize your work instead of doing the work is just another form of procrastination.

Instead, concentrate on simple things to improve your daily work. First, start noticing your work habits and thinking about how to adjust them for your own benefit. For instance, read this for three simple tricks that can buy you some breathing space right away.

Second, do not underestimate the power of a properly managed task list, especially if managing it does not cost you time (no, you probably do not need a sophisticated software solution).

Third, set up some good practices for managing yourself. Here's a simple but useful change of perspective: stop treating your future self as yourself.

If you are really overwhelmed, or if your responsibilities grow, you will need a more comprehensive solution, like talking to a professional or delegating tasks. In the meantime, the tips above might help. You can also contact me through Psychology Today with your thoughts, but be warned: I only check that inbox once a day.