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Do you think you're a total worker?

2023-05-08 · Short · Ali · recording, 0:55 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: Explanation and tutorial

In a Short, Ali follows "Jim", whose whole day, breaks and sleep included, is organised around productivity, and names this the philosopher Andrew Taggart's "total worker", a possible reason viewers feel burned out.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Jim, the total worker, and Andrew Taggart's definition of total work

  • ★★ Ali says being a "total worker" might be the reason people feel burned out. (hedged) — 00:00:00 · burnout
  • ★★ Ali's example of a total worker, Jim, wakes early and checks his phone at once, meditates for exactly 10 minutes, hits the gym, listens to a podcast while biking to work to maximise travel time, and spends the workday trying to optimise his productivity. (hypothetical) — 00:00:00
  • ★★ In Ali's example of a total worker, Jim takes breaks only because they could improve his productivity, gets Slack notifications late into the night after a 12-hour workday, and sleeps at a reasonable time only to be productive the next day. (hypothetical) — 00:00:00 · Slack

  • ★★★ Ali cites the philosopher Andrew Taggart's term "total worker": someone for whom human beings are transformed into workers and nothing else, and leisure, festivity and play come to resemble and then become work. — 00:00:29

    “where leisure, festivity, and play come to resemble and then become work”

Mentioned

Central: total work

Also: Andrew Taggart · burnout · Slack

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