It was May 2022, and I was sitting in the waiting room of a hospital with my mother. She had terminal cancer. Looking around the room, I knew each patient had received a prognosis. Each was living with some mix of fear, gratitude, exhaustion and hope. Each had a team of doctors fighting to save as many of their days as possible.

Mid-reflection, my phone buzzed. A friend had replied to my ‘How are you?’ text. The message read: ‘Thinking of you all the time. Things are good here, still really busy. Can’t wait for this week to be over.’

I would never usually have batted an eyelid at this ‘Is it Friday yet?’ sentiment. And yet, sitting in a place that forcefully reminded me that our days on this planet are not a renewable resource, I was jolted. It was suddenly, strikingly clear: what good was it for these oncologists to save human days if the working population was doing no more than trying to ‘get through’ them? This wasn’t right. It struck me as an emergency – an existential one.

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When we wished away the work week, we wished away our lives.

I’ve spent my career consulting on leadership, organisational culture and ways of working. I’ve been a CEO and led many of my own teams. When I one day look back over my career, I don’t hope to feel pride in the amount of ROI I extracted – or helped other leaders extract –from employees. I’ll measure whether I created something that people genuinely enjoyed being part of. Was there laughter? Did they like Mondays?

It’s possible to love your work and be successful too. Take Kati Karikó, the famed mRNA researcher whose work led to the development of the Covid-19 vaccines. As she would dash off to the lab, her husband would tell her, ‘You’re not going to work – you’re going to have fun.’ Or take Milton Glaser, the renowned graphic designer, who when asked why he kept working at age 87 replied, “I do it because it’s so pleasurable for me. I derive this deep, deep satisfaction that nothing else, including sex, has ever given me.’

When was the last time your work rivalled a good romp in the sheets? Below are eight practices that will help you make the most of your days.

Prioritise pleasure

Ask yourself, ‘How could I make this task more pleasurable?’ You’ve got to get the task done, of course, but there are usually at least two ways of doing it. A boring way (e.g. delivering a dry powerpoint presentation) and a fun way (e.g. creating an immersive experience that helps people think in a new way). The fun path – the work that lights you up and lights a team up – is usually the most successful.

Thin-slice your joy

If this day is a mountain of stress, try zooming in. Even on every-last-thing-is-going-wrong kind of days, there’s usually at least one moment of joy for you to savour. Maybe you’re pleased with how funny you were in an email. Or you relish a playful, knowing glance from a work friend that says, ‘Oh, your brain is about to explode too?’ If all else fails, get yourself a croissant.

Dress less ‘professional’

When we get dressed for work in the morning, the last thing most people want to put on is a business mask: that way of being that allows us to be seen as palatable, presentable and acceptable within the dominant business culture. Business masks are no fun and there’s really no need to equate being professional (doing high-quality work, on time, with respect) with things like zippers and sitting still. So when you get dressed, dress for joy! Even in a work environment with certain dress expectations, you can still find a way to self-express or prioritise your own comfort. Think: socks with a turtle print or an impossibly soft sweater.

Amuse yourself

You might think amusing yourself at work is for the creative types alone – that serious business demands seriousness of purpose. But consider perhaps the most serious of all workplaces: the operating room. Dr Peter Attia, author of Outlive and former Johns Hopkins surgeon, recounts, ‘Surgeons are often listening to music in the OR, but we only listened to one CD [of Napoleon Dynamite clips]. For an entire month... we never stopped laughing at this thing. People always ask when I tell this story, “Did it compromise the outcomes?” And I’ll say that there was a period of three days when we did 13 kidney transplants: every one of those patients had a remarkable achievement outcome.’

If surgeons are having fun while people’s lives are on the line, you can have fun in your budget meeting.

Create a context of fun

If you and a colleague both have performance reviews to write, you could do them hunched over a desk like a ‘professional’, or you could do them together at a nearby park with hotspots and iced coffee. Maybe you high-five each other after you finish each one. Or try playing some (reasonable volume) music at the office. Bonus points if you play songs from the year you turned 18. Nothing will brighten your day faster than your teenage music. And the ‘When did this come out?’ discussion might even defang workplace ageism by normalising being an age, any age.

Make work friends

There’s ample research that friendship drives business outcomes, but friendship also drives ‘I’m enjoying my life’ outcomes. If we know relationships are the secret to long-term human happiness, why do we pretend it’s any different at work? You should like the people you spend your days with. Plain and simple.

Send a love bubble

This is a little two-line note of appreciation that you DM to a colleague. ‘Hey, you were such a rock star in that meeting. When everyone was going in different directions, you were like a master cat herder!’ It’s an example of what organisational psychologist Jane Dutton calls a ‘high-quality connection’. The trick is to not overthink it. Have a nice thought? Share a nice thought. Repeat.

Learn a colleague’s middle name

You can just randomly ask. It’s not a terribly intrusive question and yet it’s oddly intimate. You’ll often hear family lore and embarrassing stories and sometimes make someone blush. It’s also a lot harder to think of Bob in accounting as a total jerk when you know he’s actually ‘Bob Nostradamus’.

My mom’s middle name was Ann (for any former colleagues reading). She passed away later that year. Losing her taught me an incredible amount about valuing my days, but she taught me the same in her life. She was a kindergarten teacher. I still have vivid memories of her coming home and saying, ‘I have the best days.’ Per Annie Dillard’s quote, ‘How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,’ I’m pretty sure my mom did something right.

Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously) by Bree Groff is published by Two Page Books