How to Fight Languishing (at Work and Everywhere Else) | Adam Grant
Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at Wharton, discusses languishing, how to combat it with flow, rethinking work flexibility, optimizing remote teams, and understanding collective effervescence to improve work-life well-being.
Deep Dive Analysis
15 Topic Outline
Introduction to Languishing and the Work-Life Series
Adam Grant's Skepticism on Impact vs. Reach
Defining Languishing and its Workplace Connection
Self-Diagnosis and Antidotes to Languishing
The Concept of Flow: Mindfulness, Mastery, and Mattering
The Role of Play and Active Rest in Preventing Languishing
Introversion, Extroversion, and Social Interaction During Pandemic
Languishing as a Predictor of Future Mental Health Issues
Overcoming Self-Criticism and Distractions in Work Flow
Workplace Structures, Flexibility, and the Great Resignation
Rethinking Work's Role and the Four-Day Workweek
Intensity vs. Frequency in Team Interaction: Burstiness
Critique of Zoom Calls and Benefits of Camera-Off Meetings
Collective Effervescence and Optimal Distinctiveness
Accountability for Adam Grant's Meditation Commitment
7 Key Concepts
Languishing
A state of emptiness and stagnation, feeling 'blah' or 'meh,' like looking at life through a foggy windshield. It's not the presence of mental illness, but the absence of peak mental health, making it hard to concentrate, stay motivated, and feel stuck.
Flow
A state of complete immersion or absorption in an activity where one loses track of their own feelings, anxieties, and distractions. It forces mindfulness, puts one out of anxieties about the future and ruminations about the past, and allows total absorption in the present moment.
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
A phenomenon where individuals deliberately stay up late, past their desired bedtime, to reclaim a sense of freedom or agency lost during an overly structured or controlled workday, often leading to exhaustion and less joy the next day.
Attention Residue
A psychological phenomenon where if a person leaves a task unfinished, their performance on a subsequent task suffers because a portion of their mental attention remains dedicated to the incomplete prior task, even subconsciously.
Burstiness (in collaboration)
A pattern of intense interaction within a team, characterized by lots of communication and ideas exchanged in a short period of time, followed by periods of independent deep work. This pattern is motivating and energizing, leading to higher productivity and creativity.
Collective Effervescence
A sense of energy and shared purpose experienced when people come together in a group, often leading to a feeling of group flow where individuals lose their sense of self and are completely in the moment with the group.
Optimal Distinctiveness
A psychological state where an individual feels like they both fit in (belong to a group) and stand out (have a unique and vital role to play) at the same time, contributing to a sense of belonging and individual value.
11 Questions Answered
Languishing is an emotional state characterized by a sense of emptiness and stagnation, feeling 'blah' or 'meh,' and struggling with concentration, motivation, and a feeling of being stuck. It represents the absence of peak mental health rather than the presence of mental illness.
Languishing can be recognized by a general feeling of being 'not sick, but not well,' a lack of clear goals, not finding as much joy in loved activities, and a sense of being stuck in a routine without momentum. It's often hard to notice because it's not as acute as depression or burnout.
The opposite of languishing is generally considered to be 'flow,' a state of complete immersion and absorption in an activity where one loses track of their own feelings and distractions, leading to mindfulness and engagement in the present moment.
To achieve flow and combat languishing, one needs a sense of mindfulness (complete immersion in the present), mastery (a feeling of progress or small wins), and mattering (feeling like you make a difference to other people).
Moments of joy, play, and fun should be treated as essential parts of a to-do list, not just rewards, because they act as a fuel that prevents languishing and can ultimately make one more productive by restoring energy and focus.
Research indicates that people who are languishing are more likely to experience depression or anxiety in the future than those currently experiencing those conditions, possibly because languishing often goes unnoticed and unaddressed until it escalates.
Task-switching, such as checking email frequently or shifting tasks every 10 minutes, hurts performance on both tasks due to 'attention residue,' where mental attention from an unfinished task lingers and impairs focus on the new task, making it difficult to achieve or maintain a flow state.
To drive change for more freedom and flexibility, individuals should form a coalition, frame the request in terms of organizational interest (e.g., quality, preventing burnout, retaining talent), and ask their manager for advice on how to address the collective problem.
The Great Resignation is not just about wanting to work remotely; it's a broader quest for freedom and autonomy at work, encompassing choices about when, how much, with whom, and on what one works, reflecting a desire to integrate work into life priorities rather than the other way around.
It's the intensity of interaction, not just the frequency, that fuels productivity and creativity in teams. Teams that engage in 'burstiness' – intense, focused periods of communication followed by independent deep work – are more productive and creative because these bursts are energizing and allow for building on ideas.
Turning off cameras during virtual meetings can lead to more accurate reading of emotions (as tone of voice is a purer signal), reduce Zoom fatigue (especially for women and newcomers), and promote more balanced conversations and higher collective intelligence in small groups (as people are more likely to pause and take turns).
24 Actionable Insights
1. Identify and Schedule Flow
To combat languishing, identify activities that provide a sense of mindfulness (complete immersion), mastery (feeling of progress), and mattering (feeling you make a difference to others), and then schedule them into your daily calendar.
2. Prioritize Play and Fun
Instead of treating play, joy, and fun as rewards for finishing tasks, schedule them directly onto your to-do list, recognizing they act as fuel, prevent languishing, and are productive.
3. Use Positive Psychology Tools
Employ contemplative tools and positive psychology principles, such as practicing gratitude, savoring joy, and cultivating compassion, to address acute mental pain, train the mind, and prevent languishing from escalating into more serious challenges.
4. Minimize Task Switching
Reduce the frequency of task switching and checking emails throughout the day to sustain attention on a single task, which is crucial for achieving flow states and improving performance.
5. Separate Creative & Critical Work
When engaged in creative tasks like writing, focus solely on generating content with an open, nonjudgmental mindset, and postpone critical editing and refinement to a separate, later stage to facilitate flow and creativity.
6. Manage Distractions with Lists
To quickly engage in work and reduce mental static, either make a list of home worries and commit to addressing them later, or list work priorities and verbally give yourself permission to focus on them for the workday.
7. Advocate for Workplace Flexibility
To drive change for more freedom and flexibility at work, frame the issue as a collective problem (e.g., languishing, burnout, great resignation) and ask your manager for advice on how to address it, making them an advocate rather than an adversary.
8. Prioritize Life Over Work
Challenge the societal norm of work defining identity and prioritize designing work to fit into your life priorities, rather than fitting life around the demands of work.
9. Cultivate Collective Effervescence
Actively seek out experiences of “collective effervescence”—moments of shared energy and purpose with a group, even through casual interactions—as these can lead to group flow, mindfulness, and a sense of mattering, serving as an antidote to languishing.
10. Prioritize Social Interaction
Recognize that all individuals, including introverts, are energized by social interaction, and actively seek out ways to connect with others to avoid self-isolation and loneliness, even if you are more easily overstimulated.
11. Redefine Rest as Active Play
Shift your perception of rest from passive lounging to active engagement, such as reading, playing cognitively demanding games, or working out, as these activities can be energizing and prevent languishing.
12. Strategically Use Meeting Cameras
Leaders should advocate for a flexible approach to virtual meeting cameras, using them strategically based on the meeting’s nature and participants, allowing for camera-off periods to reduce fatigue and encourage walking, while still maintaining presence when beneficial.
13. Reduce Zoom Fatigue
Turn off your camera during virtual meetings, especially if you are a woman or newcomer, to reduce emotional exhaustion, alleviate pressure about appearance, and improve concentration and engagement.
14. Improve Small Group Audio-Only
For small group or pair collaborations, consider using audio-only communication, as it can lead to higher collective intelligence and more balanced conversations by encouraging turn-taking and reducing visual distractions.
15. Prioritize Audio Cues
When trying to understand others’ emotions, focus primarily on their tone of voice, as visual cues like facial expressions and body language can be misleading and distracting, potentially making audio-only interactions more accurate.
16. Implement Team “Burstiness”
For productive and creative teamwork, schedule dedicated periods for deep, independent work, followed by intense, focused “blitzes” of collaboration, rather than constant, low-frequency interaction.
17. Clarity for Virtual Teams
For effective virtual teamwork and to combat languishing, managers should ensure clear goals (what the team is trying to achieve) and clear roles (how individual contributions align with the collective mission).
18. Seek Broader Workplace Autonomy
Recognize that the desire for flexibility extends beyond just where you work; actively seek greater autonomy over when you work, how much you work, who you work with, and what you work on to improve job satisfaction.
19. Advocate Flexible Work Schedules
Encourage or seek out workplaces that experiment with alternative schedules like four-day workweeks or six-hour workdays, as these can increase productivity and improve quality of life.
20. Find External Motivation
If you struggle to commit to a personal habit (like meditation) that only benefits you, find a context where your experience can benefit others or serve a broader purpose, as this external motivation can increase follow-through.
21. Evaluate by Usefulness
When trying new practices like meditation or therapy, assess their value based on their usefulness and ability to achieve desired outcomes, rather than whether you intrinsically “like” the activity.
22. Seek Collective Flow
Engage in activities with others where you can achieve “collective flow,” creating shared experiences that provide a sense of mattering and meaningful memories.
23. Pre-select TV Content
Before turning on the TV, decide exactly what you want to watch to avoid wasting time channel surfing and to make the activity something to be excited about.
24. Set Game Time Boundaries
When playing cognitively demanding games like online Scrabble, set a time boundary (e.g., 10-15 minutes) to prevent endless play and subsequent exhaustion.
10 Key Quotes
I feel like there's a big gap between people reading something and them actually benefiting from it.
Adam Grant
Languishing feels like you're looking at life through a foggy windshield, which is what a lot of people were describing as a pandemic fog, literally.
Adam Grant
When you're languishing, you still have some energy, but you just feel kind of blah or meh.
Adam Grant
The point is not that we should all go play Mario Kart to stop languishing, right? It's to ask, what is my version of Mario Kart?
Adam Grant
I think that those moments of joy and play and fun, they actually belong on my to-do list, right? Their source is a fuel, and they actually prevent languishing, which makes them productive, even though they don't sound like they're achieving anything.
Adam Grant
If you want to predict who's going to be depressed or anxious over the next decade, it wasn't actually the people who are most depressed or anxious right now. It was the people who are languishing now.
Adam Grant
Humans are serial processors. We can really only do one thing at a time.
Adam Grant
The great resignation is not just about wanting to be able to choose where you work. It's also a quest for freedom around when you work, how much you work, who you have to work with, what you get to work on.
Adam Grant
I think the big cultural question is, how do we design work to fit into our life priorities, as opposed to squeezing our life priorities around or into the gaps in work?
Adam Grant
It's not the frequency of interaction that fuels productivity and creativity. It's the intensity of interaction.
Adam Grant
2 Protocols
Intervention to Improve Workday Engagement
Adam Grant (referencing Jessica Rodell and colleagues' research)- Make a list of the things that you needed to deal with at home and then commit to come back to them once you were done working (detaching from home worries).
- Alternatively, make a list of your big priorities at work and literally just out loud give yourself permission to focus on those for your workday.
Strategy for Requesting Workplace Flexibility/Change
Adam Grant (referencing Katie Lillianquist's research)- Identify a collective problem for the team or organization that is being caused by a diagnosed issue (e.g., languishing, restriction in freedom).
- Explain why addressing this problem and granting more freedom/flexibility is in the organization's or manager's interest (e.g., quality, preventing burnout, retaining talent).
- Ask your manager for their recommendations about how to deal with it, which flatters them and encourages them to be an advocate.