The four Gears of Work
You can work in one of four modes (or gears or zones):
1. Performance
This is where everybody wants to be. Your work is fun, it seems to flow effortlessly, you feel inspired, stimulated, full of energy etc. The tasks have a good difficulty to keep you challenged but not overwhelm you.
It would be nice to stay in the performance zone forever, but sooner or later one of the following happens:
- the amount of work grows (by fluctuation or because someone recognized you are doing well or because of your own ambition)
- the difficulty of work changes (as above)
- you become tired
Without reacting to the change, you drift into the second gear:
2. Attrition
In the attrition mode, the work generates some amount of pressure or stress. You probably have been there and can think of more than one thing that makes work more stressful. Being in the attrition zone is no problem in itself. You still get things done. Everybody is able to resist some amount of stress. From time to time it is simply necessary e.g. to deal with an emergency.
The problem is if you are working in the attrition zone all the time. Then there is a risk to drift into the burnout zone.
3. Burnout
I am not an expert on what burnout as a clinical symptom precisely is. What is meant here is that the effects of attrition become severe enough that the performance of work suffers. In the burnout gear, there is still a lot of stress, but it does not push performance. Someone in the burnout zone is unable to focus, doesn't get things done and probably there are effects on long-term health.
In brief: This is not a good place to be. Get out of there on the first occasion!
4. Relax
The fourth gear is the one that helps you avoid the downward spiral. By deliberately not working, you give yourself a chance to replenish your energy, make room for new ideas, gain new insight etc. How can you make room for relaxing at your workplace? Some possibilities:
- Obviously, take a break
- Switch to an easy task or a non-critical project
- Do something you like to do
- Read something
Spending enough time in the relaxation zone will give you the energy to jump back into the high-performance zone. And here the cycle starts again.
Summary
The four gear model does not tell you when to switch gears. It tells us that taking breaks and switching the mode of work might be a good idea. The model tells us that to achieve the highest performance, you need to switch between the performance and relaxing gear frequently.
There are several references for this model. A variation that applies the same idea to teams has been termed "elastic leadership" by Jürgen Appello.