The lives of workaholics are fast-paced, non-stop, challenging, and rewarding. We are most comfortable when we have a to-do list, and we know it was a good day when everything is crossed off, but a new list constructed in the process.
I love to be busy. I love to be stressed and challenged and constantly working to be more successful then I had been the day before. I love having so much to do that it can't be done, but actually doing everything, and then some.
I am a recent college graduate, turned full-time teacher who has found herself without enough to do. To some it sounds nice to have evenings and weekends free, with multiple breaks during your work day. I propose a trade, because I find myself wishing, multiple times a day, for anything to keep me busy for a full day.
Here's how to keep a workaholic happy:
1. Make sure they have a busy schedule
To please the average workaholic, they need to have multiple required events in a day. Weather it be classes, jobs, meetings, projects, or any combination of the like, they need to have very few breaks.
2. Speaking of breaks...
Breaks should be used for consuming the required sustenance to continue the busy day, and completing work that isn't due or needed for another week or two. Procrastination is a dirty word to us workaholics, and only by mistake will we every complete anything late, or last minute.
3. To the employers and professors of workaholics:
To get the best results out of your workaholic, those who assign or provide direction to said workaholics needs to plan ahead themselves. If not given a second, third, or twelfth step to the project or process being worked on, the workaholics will get distracted. Their faithfulness to your project will deteriorate as they try and fill their time with other, more extensive, tasks.
4. Coffee shops will shock our systems
If you notice your workaholic isn't motivated or performing at the usual standard, simply take them to a coffee shop. Pump them full of coffee, give them headphones, an awesome playlist, and a computer. Your workaholic will recharge in 2-3 hours. Crisis averted.
5. We feel valued and useful when you let us help
Workaholics love to lend their skills to those who they love and care about. Those who ask kindly and express a desire to do well, simply because they are internally motivated, may also receive help. Befriend a workaholic, and you will never be without a homework buddy, or a paper-editing machine.
6. We are not freaks. We are not shut-ins. We are not teacher's pets.
We work in these conditions because it feeds our souls. Being successful, busy, challenged, and buried under to-do lists is our most comfortable state. Please don't criticize or tell use to stop. We aren't trying to show other non-workaholics up, or compete with you. This is simply how we are. For better or worse.
