satisfaction — 2012 — The 21st Century Matriarch

Life is a little work, a little sleep, a little love and it is all over. – Mary Roberts Rhinehart

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This quote is somewhat like ‘Life is short. Eat dessert first!’ - using the word ‘little’ and ‘short’ to point out the potential of our life being ‘all over’ relatively quickly in the scheme of things. The underlying message is to enjoy your life all along the way rather than thinking to wait for some future time.

In recent years, more and more people have attained the ability to appear ‘always working’ with the advent of mobile devices that enable work to be accomplished virtually anywhere and anytime. Farmers - or anyone that cares for animals as part of their work - have always been in this mode so there was really only a short interval in history when most people could easily distinguish between their work/not work time.

For many of us, our definition of work is evolving. Having a component of satisfaction and joy in our work is more important than ever because time boxed ‘balance’ is often not possible. In other words - work/life balance is no longer a viable strategy. Instead - a dynamic mix of activities make up our life. We can categorize a snapshot of our current activies in various ways if that helps us decide their relative value for us. Here's a quick way to do some analysis using the color coded 2x2 matrixes at the bottom of this post:

Check to make sure you agree with my color coding; make adjustments as needed.
Make a list of activities that are taking the majority of your time. Usually the top 10 or so are the ones to focus on.
For each activity - look at it from all the perspectives in the 2x2 blocks below and note any that are 'non-green'
Are there activities that have a lot of red? If there are - find a way to stop doing them or to change them in some way to make them more satisfying.
Are there activities that have a lot of yellow? Those may be activities to keep but make sure your motivation for continuing is still great enough to overcome their negative aspects.
For activities that are 'green' - good for you. These are keepers!

There is something astonishingly satisfying about holding in your hands a physical object that didn’t exist until you made it. - Diana Athill in Yesterday Morning: A Very English Childhood

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I agree with Diana Athill. Making a physical object can be very satisfying. In our everyday lives there are lots of opportunities for us to gain this kind of satisfaction. It can be rather ordinary -