This past week has been a doozy as I received my second vaccine dose (yes!) and then dealt with some harsh side-effects. I spent a few days, as my wife so brilliantly coined, “parenting from the couch.”

Oddly enough, I did more walking than ever as I was told the constant movement helps.

However, it also gave me time to dive deep into some new literature that examines whether the rapid communication of today’s business world has actually helped or hindered real work. It wasn’t so much the main arguments that intrigued me, but the off-beat notes.

For instance, the author’s grandfather, who was a professor, wrote books and papers by hand on yellow legal pads, then handed them in to be typed up and submitted. We think we’re in a better place now because we can type, edit and submit ourselves in an instant, but that little tidbit had me wondering how much time is actually spent mucking around on devices rather than doing real work.

Or the sheer amount of time I spend writing emails to parents who message me, only to erase them and call them on the phone as it’s much more efficient.

Or even consider the office and the façade of busywork, only to realize not a whole lot got accomplished at the end of the day. However, because it looked like work, it goes unquestioned.

Or how much of our attention is hijacked when we have to do some difficult problem solving, or how resistant we are to diving deeply into something and resort back to something shallow (“Let me just send this email.”)

It seems we live in a time where it’s much easier to pretend to do work because we haven’t learned how to leverage the great tools at our disposal. Mainly, the strengths of people and utilizing them in the best way.