![]() ![]() Knight has had more than one boss in her career tell her she cares too much. One fan of caring less is Sarah Knight, reformed overachiever and author of The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a F**k – a parody of Marie Kondo’s famous tidying up bible that promises, rather than rearranging our drawers, to declutter our minds. While muting our devices, streamlining our social lives and shaking off the haters have fast become new ambitions for the 21st century, can we also shrug off our once-steely work ethic and say ‘pfft. ![]() As promising students we were told ‘aim high! Join in! You can do anything!’ – but nobody thought to mention we could also aim lower, opt out or do exactly what our pay cheque required and no more. Talking to school friends about their work woes (office politics, inconsistent managers, unreasonable workloads – the full megamix) makes me wish that somewhere along the way, we’d been taught not to care quite as much. “For example, checking and rechecking work, spending too long on each task, taking work home and setting excessively high standards.” “These are the pressures you place on yourself,” she says. Where is all the pressure coming from?Ĭlinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd, co-author of This Book Will Make You Calm explains that workplace anxiety results from a mixture of external demands (work you’re given by others) and internal demands. We’re also picking up the emotional slack. But that stress is not just because we’re more likely to pick up the kids. Numerous studies have found workplace stress levels to be higher for women – up to 67% higher for women between 34 and 44, as last year’s study by the Health and Safety Executive found. Her lunch hours are eaten up with extra tasks redrafting emails to nail the perfect breezy yet efficient tone, and racing back to her desk to trill “Sorry sorry, Pret was manic!” to people who hadn’t even noticed she was gone. Not necessarily from being any better, but from worrying far more that she’s not. Because staring glumly at their backs as they head to the pub is a Katie Cares-too-much, and she’s frazzled.
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