More Craft, Less Chores

I’ve always struggled with the idea of work-life balance. That’s not because I’m a workaholic or don’t value my leisure time. Instead, it’s because I work for myself. What counts as “work” and what counts as “leisure” is harder to separate when I make my own schedule and don’t get paid by the hour.

For instance, when I read a book that really interests me and then write about it later — was the reading work or fun? What if I had to read the book for research? What’s different between the drawings I do for fun and those I use on this blog?

Perhaps I’m an isolated case, but I’d like to think not. In the years Cal Newport and I have run Life of Focus, I’ve interacted with dozens of students who struggle with work and play being intermixed in both their time at home and their time formally allocated to an employer.

The situation is even more complicated for retirees, students, academics, and stay-at-home parents, many of whom aren’t “paid,” strictly speaking, for many things that clearly seem to be work.

Recently, however, I’ve stumbled into a distinction I think matters more than the one between work and life: that between craft and chores. While work seemingly embodies everything you must do to earn a living, and life is everything else, craft is all of the productive activities that utilize your creativity and skill in order to…