Creating Space for Meaningful Work

We often talk about meaningful work or contribution as though it is something we need to find — the right role, project, the work that makes us feel useful, engaged or alive. Perhaps however, meaning isn't always something we find or stumble across in itself but rather depends on whether we’ve created enough space for it.

Our working lives can become remarkably full without necessarily becoming more meaningful. There are meetings, messages, deadlines, decisions and an endless stream of things that need and demand our attention. Even work we genuinely care about can become buried beneath the sheer volume of demands, not to mention life and demands outside of the work environment. There are people to care for, homes to run, relationships to maintain, appointments to make and plans to organise. There is always something that can be ‘done’. The result often being those things which matter most and coincidently, are usually best for us in terms of what we really do ‘need’ can easily end up reserved for whatever time and energy is left over. Yet, we reassure ourselves that we’ll get to it when things quieten down. The only problem with this way of operating, being that things rarely quieten down by themselves.

Space is not the same as time

It’s easy to think that what we need is more time — another hour in the day, a free afternoon, a quieter week, but meaningful work doesn't always require more time. Sometimes it requires a different kind of attention. There is after all, a difference between having an available hour and having an hour in which your mind is actually available.

The first being about the clock, the second about space.

We can be sitting at our desks with plenty of time and still feel mentally crowded. Thinking about the email we haven't answered, the conversation we need to have, the decision waiting for us, the dozens of small things competing for attention.

Creating space, however, is partly about deciding what doesn't get our attention, and that can be surprisingly difficult.

Not everything deserves equal weight

One of the privileges (and challenges) of getting older is that we become more aware of the finite nature of time and the value of our attention. We begin to see that being capable of something doesn't necessarily mean we should. That being asked isn’t always a compliment and means we have to say yes. Lastly and perhaps even more importantly, being busy isn't always a representation of importance or priority.

Perhaps meaningful work and contribution begins with a little editing.

What can be removed?
What can be simplified?
What can wait?
What have we agreed to simply because we have always agreed to it?

These aren't dramatic, life changing questions, subsequentially the changes that create the most space are quite ordinary.

A commitment that no longer needs ‘committing’, a meeting that doesn't need to happen or more so, can take place without you, an expectation that can be lowered, a boundary that needs to be clearer.

Space is often intentionally created through small acts of saying no and refusal.

Meaning needs room to develop

There is another reason space matters — meaningful work is rarely produced entirely on demand. Ideas need time to form, connections require space to forge, and questions need to marinate a little.

Some of our best thinking happens when we aren't actively ‘trying’ to think — it might be while walking, cooking, driving, sitting somewhere in nature detached from outcomes and without reaching for our phone. There is something about stepping away from constant output and noise that allows our own thoughts to become audible again, and which unfortunately is increasingly difficult in a culture that rewards responsiveness.

We are expected to be available, informed and quick to respond, it’s so easy to fill every quiet moment with ‘something’ and to be trapped into thinking a quiet hour where we’re not producing is a wasted hour. What if however, not every quiet moment needs filling, for there is a particular kind of intelligence that only appears when we leave room for it.

The work we care about may not shout the loudest

Urgent work tends to announce itself — it arrives with a deadline, a notification and often with someone else's expectation attached to it.

Meaningful work however is often quiet. It may be the project we've been thinking about for months (or years), the idea we haven't quite found the shape for, the piece of work that asks us to stop, think and create rather than simply respond. Because it isn't urgent, it can be surprisingly easy to postpone — again and again until eventually we find ourselves wondering why we aren't doing more of the work we once said mattered to us. Perhaps the answer isn't that we’ve lost our ambition for it, we simply haven't given it anywhere to go.

Making room becomes a choice

Creating space for meaningful work doesn't necessarily mean changing jobs or restructuring an entire life. Sometimes it means protecting an hour or auditing a schedule. Sometimes it means allowing a project to take longer than it would if we rushed it or giving ourselves permission to start something before we know exactly what it will become.

Sometimes it means recognising the most meaningful work in our lives doesn't have to be the work that looks the most impressive from the outside. As we move through life, our definition of ‘meaningful’ can shift and change form. What once mattered enormously may matter less, and something quieter may slowly begin to matter more.

A different kind of contribution. More autonomy. More creativity. More time to think. Work that connects us with people and to something much larger than ourselves. Work that leaves something behind for the next generation or simply a contribution that feels worthwhile without a monetary outcome attached.

We don't always need a new answer.

Sometimes all we need is enough space to hear the answer that is slowly emerging.

What are we making room for?

Perhaps this is one of the more useful questions to carry with us.

Not simply — What do I want to do?

But — What would I love to have room for?

Because the things we say and which matter to us will always require somewhere to live.

An idea needs attention.

A creative practice requires time.

A meaningful project deserves energy.

A different kind of life may require us to stop filling every available space with the expectations attached to the one we already have.

We cannot always create more hours, but we can become more deliberate about what we choose to do inside of them.

Perhaps meaningful work doesn't begin with finding more space but rather with intentionally creating it.