Love Your Job

CHAPTER 6 How to Build Flexibility into Your Job ■ ■ ■

It’s Labor Day, and while many workers in the United States are savoring the extra day off, I’m working. But I’m not complaining. I’m perched in a comfy chair on the porch of a simple cottage overlooking a shimmering pond, a herd of horses, and the hazy blue Shenandoah Mountains in the distance. The morning mist is heavy, and I can hear a rooster proudly announcing the dawn.

Not a bad place to work. My commute? Less than 15 seconds. I run my own media business, and I make my office wherever my bootheels may be wandering, to paraphrase the line from Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” My work life is flexible, and my entire life is so much better since I quit working in an office as a journalist more than a decade ago. Plus, I’m more productive than I’ve ever been.

When I ask people to name one thing that would make them happier about their jobs, they say independence in some way, shape, or form. “Let me work from home a few days a week, or allow me to tap into flextime options,” they say. The option to work flexibly gives us a sense of control and autonomy. And it lets us participate in the other activities we value in our lives.

I can’t describe the joy it brings me not to have to ask anyone permission to head off for a midday horseback-riding lesson, walk my dog down the lane, meet a friend for coffee, or take a vacation (although I always work some of the time when I’m on the road, but that’s okay with me, too; I love ...