The Secret to Happiness at Work

Understanding the levers of workplace happiness and how you can control them.

Living For the Weekdays is a pragmatic guide to becoming a part-time entrepreneur, finding meaning in work, and achieving financial independence.

I recently sold my part-time business. It was something I started during my PhD when I was down in the dumps. And even though, when compared to my corporate job, I had greater reputation risk, more stress and less money initially, I was happier. Looking back at my experience, I realised that one thing in particular played a disproportionately large role in my happiness. Today, I want to tell you about that thing. Spoiler alert: That thing is structured autonomy. But what is structured autonomy and how can you obtain it?

Back when I was a consultant in London, I had to send status reports twice a day. The content for the reports was pulled from an excel sheet I was managing. When I first started this job, I was required to send each report to my boss, who would then review it and send it to the client.

Eventually, after two months of successfully proving my copy-pasting skills, I was given the opportunity to send the status reports directly to the client. To be honest, as sad as this may sound, I felt empowered. That little bit of autonomy actually made me happier, but only for a very short time.

Tired of having to produce mundane status reports, I was desperately looking for a way to automate this task. So, I did what any computer scientist in my position would do, I built a website. This website would automatically pull data from the excel file and display the relevant details on the webpage. I pre-scheduled 10 emails for the week with a standard message containing a link to the website and suddenly, I no longer had to do status reports.

Proud by my new creation, I excitedly demonstrated the website to my boss, but much to my surprise, she was far from impressed. She wasn't interested in the fact that I had made an existing process far simpler. Rather, she was disappointed that I was unable to follow her exact instructions. “We have a tried and tested process for sending out status reports Ahmed. Let’s not reinvent the wheel” she said. So, RIP status report website.

A full 12 months later, I decided that business consulting wasn’t for me. I mean on the surface, it seemed perfect: solving problems for a living. But in reality, the best part of solving problems is thinking critically and creatively, and that was clearly out of scope.

During my PhD, I setup my first part-time business. Ironically, it was a consulting practice. I was advising companies where and how to use machine learning and AI. It was while I was building this business that I realised the significance of structured autonomy.

To understand what structured autonomy is we must first define autonomy. To have autonomy is to have the right to self-govern and be free from external control or influence. The notion of autonomy has really taken off during the pandemic as more people want flexibility and freedom in the workplace.

Being free from any external pressure sounds great at first, but too much autonomy can often lead to procrastination, lack of direction and ultimately frustration. On the other hand, having too little autonomy with excessive external pressure and micromanagement, as was the case at my previous job, is also harmful. It can result in Sunday blues, slower personal development, and a general lack of motivation. Somewhere between micromanagement and complete autonomy is structured autonomy, a term I coined to describe the perfect balance of external pressure and freedom.

In structured autonomy you are in complete control of the “how”, but you have a well defined “what”. In this context, the “what” is the goal you’re trying to achieve e.g. keeping clients informed of daily updates. The “how” is the process you use to achieve the “what” e.g. copy-pasting data from excel sheets into an email twice a day.

Most people working in the corporate world don’t have control of both the “what” and the “how”. In fact, they often have control of neither and as a result struggle to ever obtain structured autonomy. If you’re someone who fits this description then part-time entrepreneurship is for you.

Part-time entrepreneurship is a sure shot way of ensuring you can control both the “what” and “how”. This is called complete autonomy. And although this is a good start, unless you manage this new freedom correctly, you may find yourself less happy than before.

At first, having complete autonomy can feel incredible, but over time you will begin to feel lonely and isolated. If you’re like me, you’ll also probably notice that you’re not making as much progress as you would have liked. You will find yourself in a perpetual state of “I’m starting a part-time business” and never actually make significant progress. This is because without structure, we lack clarity and without clarity, we lack motivation. So how do we bring structure to our autonomy when building a part-time business?

To find structure and counter the complete autonomy dilemma, you need at least one of the following in your business: accountability buddies (other part-time entrepreneurs going through the same journey), coaches or mentors. These relationships create a level of positive external influence and pressure that shift us from complete autonomy towards structured autonomy.

Since your mentor or coach is unlikely to be looking over your shoulder every 30 minutes, the risk of being micromanaged is effectively zero. However, the existence of these relationships in your business means that you still have some level of accountability and external pressure pushing you to take the next step, find clarity, increase motivation and ultimately take action.

Structured autonomy allows you to exercise creativity and critical thought in a way that also results in tangible output and progress. The freedom creates space for exploration and helps identify both your strengths and interests.

Striving for structured autonomy through the pursuit of part-time entrepreneurship can break the shackles of workplace unhappiness. So subscribe to my newsletter Living For The Weekdays (LFTW) where I help you navigate the journey of building a part-time business and much more. In the coming weeks and months I’ll be covering more topics on how to get started with building and growing a part-time business. Until then keep LFTW!