Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Eat Sleep Work Repeat is a pretty solid description of a lot of our workdays, even during stay-at-home orders. The only correction I would make is that I’m probably not alone in often eating while I work. When I quit my day job in 2010, I lost 15 pounds the first year just from not snacking at my desk. Anyway. Bruce Daisley is here to show us all how to replace the negative factors of our work lives with something nice. Yes, all of them!

Personally, I have it made. I can work from home, barefoot, next to an open window. This was literally my dream when I was 24. All the things that used to bother me about work are, at least temporarily, gone: The commute, getting up early to fuss with my hair, the dress code, wearing a badge, the burnt popcorn in the break room, and, worst of all, freezing all day most days. Now I can wrap up in a blanket when I need to and nobody even knows.

Isn’t it weird how the things we dislike about “work” usually aren’t related to the work itself? It’s the conditions that get us - that, or the friction of human interactions.

This book is arranged in short sections that are focused on specific, easily manageable changes. Some examples would be taking an actual lunch break, or banning phones from meetings. Much of the book deals with ways that colleagues can help each other create a better work environment that is both more efficient and more fun. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is the rare sort of business book that can be shared at work and embraced by anyone who picks it up. Let’s all try to spread the word about some of these cultural changes so they become the norm... whenever we go back to having a norm.

Favorite quotes:

Is it reasonable to expect to enjoy your job?

We’re overwhelmed with demands and expectations placed on us by others, but we have come to accept it all because we assume that’s the way it is and has to be.

Quite simply, when we laugh we’re willing to show our truest selves to others and be more open to the quirkiness of others.