We all agree more or less that what we all are seeking is a joyful life. Good food. Enough rest. Time with people we love. Space to do what makes us feel alive — to watch movies, go on a trip, play, party, simply be.
And yet, how often do we hear — or say — things like:
“Three-day trip is tough, I have to be in the office Monday.”
“I’ll do what I love once I retire.”
“What a time it was in college — we met every evening! But everyone’s busy now.”
We know what matters. So why is there so little visible effort — individually or systemically — to design our lives around it?
When we started sitting with this question at Learning Companions, it kept tracing back to our schooling. Think about it: to go on a trip, you need some money and some time. But while schools teach a lot about how to earn money, they almost never teach us how to earn time. Or even that time is something we should think about earning — and protecting — as seriously as we think about income. Last year, we decided that if we truly consider ourselves to be in the work of education, this has to be our core concern.
The first barrier, we’ve found, is often a mindset: “But it doesn’t look possible.”
So our first action had to be this: If it looks important, it has to be done. Otherwise, it’s like setting out to go to Delhi, but choosing a different destination just because Delhi looked impossible. What’s the point of any journey, if it doesn’t take you where you really wanted to go?
In education too, you could say, “We impacted a thousand children.” But if in the process your team — your teachers, your leaders — are left drained, out of time, with no mindspace to live life meaningfully… and if your children, too, are left with no real clue how to live well… then what did you really impact? So, step one for us was to declare: This matters. This has to happen. That’s the only work worth doing.
Second, many organisations find it hard to allow flexibility in work hours because there’s actually not enough clarity on what exactly needs to be achieved. In the absence of clear outcomes, we end up measuring work by hours spent “looking busy” — rather than by what actually got done. So at Learning Companions, we invested significant effort into defining outcomes sharply, communicating them consistently, and checking in meaningfully. Once goals were clear, it became obvious that as long as things were getting done well, people could work with whatever rhythm life demanded. We introduced the ‘flexible Monday’. Along with the 2nd and 4th Saturday holidays, it meant people had two weeks in the month when they could be wherever they want or need to be for a stretch of 3 days. We weren’t doing less work. Or even fewer hours. Just that those hours came with flexibility — woven around real life — instead of being in tension with it.
Third, we committed to ensuring that the work itself was rooted in purpose and personal alignment. That meant checking in regularly to see whether people were taking up tasks that resonated with their interests, values, and sense of mission. If something didn’t fit, we created space to explore the why — and whether a change in role, or even a change in direction, made sense. As a result, most of us were doing things we chose. That ownership made a huge difference. People pushed themselves, learned new things, and kept showing up — even when no one was watching.
Fourth, our leadership approach shifted from simply tracking deliverables to asking deeper questions: Are people feeling clear, confident, and motivated about the work they’re doing? Not just, “Is the work getting done?” But, “Is the person doing the work feeling ready and excited to take it on?” When a manager realises their colleague does not feel either clarity, confidence or motivation for the task they are assigned or taken up, they would work together to check why take necessary steps to change that. Because when that inner readiness is present, the quality and joy of the work transforms.
It hasn’t all been smooth. Designing for joy in a world optimized for urgency is hard. In the early days, some people felt guilty about taking the extra Monday, unsure if it would be seen as “slacking.” Some team members initially struggled with defining outcomes sharply — they were used to being told what to do, not shaping what needs to be done. And even now, we sometimes bump up against the limits of our systems — of each one of us still learning and yet to get in full rhythm of balancing accountability with flexibility, doubting the approach when something just slips off our hands, and wondering how our people, our supporters, well wishers react when we come out with this story. We’ve had to remind ourselves: we are not aiming for perfection, but coherence — between our values and how we live them. That has meant saying no to opportunities that didn’t align, slowing down when we felt rushed, and choosing depth over pace. It’s not always easy. But that’s exactly why it’s worth doing.
But a year now, we can say with confidence: It’s working best to our expectations and we have some very promising signs to say: Yes, it’s possible. We got more done this year than the last. But more importantly — our people are happier. We’re experiencing more freedom, more leisure, and a deeper sense of belonging. It’s a different way of living and working together — a different collective experience altogether. It is worth everything.