We all take on shadow work in addition to the traditional work we do at our day jobs and at home. Why is this unseen work filling out lives and what can we do about it? Here’s a look at Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day and how it impacts us all.
Shadow Work
Shadow work are jobs we take on, outside of our normal job. This can be things like pumping gas, preparing our own taxes, or even helping kids with homework. Tasks that eat into our free time and become a new workload we all accept. They’re everywhere, and Shadow Work shows just how much of our time they’ve now taken over.
The entire book is a collection of examples of the shadow work we shoulder. Countless tasks that use to be delegated to others, which we now take on. Where we use to book a trip with a quick call to a travel agency, we now spend hours online researching destination, airline, and hotel options. This may not seem like work but it is a significant drain on our free time and an added stressor on our lives.
After a few chapters, it became clear how much shadow work we all do. Soon, the examples aren’t really needed, nor is the detail in which the author goes into the history of the jobs. Things get a bit long winded and it becomes easy to lose interest as example after example is offered, along with all kinds of unnecessary background on each.
What’s really missing any suggestion of what to do about the shadow work taking all of our time. Sure, things like pumping our own gas might speed things up a bit, but how can get rid of the unwanted time suckers that have taken our precious free time? There’s nothing offered in the way of fighting back, only examples of how we’re losing out.
It’s a bit depressing to know what our free time is being eaten up and there may be nothing we can do to stop others from putting more on our plates.
Doing Additional Work
Shadow Work explores the many tasks we’ve now taken on in addition to our jobs and gives insight into just how many tasks we now perform for others. Though interesting at first, it becomes a bit boring as it’s really only a book filled with examples of all the work we now do. All instances, no answers.
If you’re interested in seeing how we’ve all taken on far more than our original jobs, save yourself the shadow work of having to search for this book by clicking here to purchase Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day from Amazon. And then take on the additional task of reading it.
