I consider “work,” in its most universal sense, as meaning anything that you want or need to be different than it currently is.
Many people make a distinction between “work” and “personal life,” but I don’t: to me, weeding the garden or updating my will is just as much “work” as writing this book or coaching a client.
– David Allen in Getting Things Done
I’ve been exploring the question “What is work” on the blog recently. I even got sneaky and asked “What is the opposite of work“?
However, I’m really liking the definition above by David Allen. What do you think?
I am reminded of a brain teaser I once read in an engineering journal that asked what was the largest number of triangles that could be created from six equal-length line segments. Their answer was four (a tetrahedron); mine was eight (a Star of David). You see, they made the mistake of starting with an answer, which was to think in three dimensions instead of two, and allowing their initial prejudice to blind them of any “better” answers.
I loved all the wonderful nuances that were revealed in the many responses to your question, “what is the opposite of work?” Nuances that are, frankly, missing from your pre-blessed “correct” answer above. The result? I am anything but motivated to read anything else Mr. Allen might have to offer me. Perhaps if you went back to those answers you received, you might be able to come up with something of real substance for your readers.