How I Am Making Work Smaller
For more than twenty years, I have done technical work for the same small printing-and-mailing company.
This was part-time work for the most part, while I made my living as a writer and publisher.
But over the years, my role grew.
What began as a fairly defined kind of contract work gradually became a broad mixture of software development, maintenance, production support, troubleshooting, documentation, and answering questions about systems that few other people knew well.
This did not happen through one large decision.
It happened one reasonable addition at a time:
- A new system needed to be built.
- An old system needed to be kept running.
- A production problem needed to be solved quickly.
- A vendor changed something.
- A customer order needed to be investigated.
- Someone needed to understand how the different pieces fit together.
Because I had been there a long time and could usually solve the problem, more of the work came to me.
Eventually, I was not only doing the work. I was also carrying much of the knowledge, continuity, and responsibility around it.
For a long time, that arrangement worked well enough.
It fit my writing schedule.
The income mattered.
The work was useful.
I valued the trust that had developed over so many years.
I also took some pride in being the person who could step in when something difficult needed to be understood or repaired.
And a few years ago, when I took a break from writing, I was happy to take on more hours and more responsibility.
But the fact that an arrangement has worked does not mean it should keep the same shape forever.
This year, I no longer wanted this one long-standing role to claim fifty or sixty hours each month.
I wanted paid work to remain part of my life, but not to keep setting the shape of most of my days.
I wanted more room to return to my own writing and smaller projects.
I wanted more room for family, health, and the ordinary parts of life that are easy to fit around work until there is very little room left for them.
While I didn't want to reject everything the work had been, I did need the role to become smaller.
At first, I thought mostly in terms of transition.
I could document the systems, help other people understand them, answer focused questions, and gradually step back.
But a transition of this kind creates work of its own:
- New people need context.
- Old decisions need to be explained.
- Priorities need to be set.
- Someone needs to decide who is responsible for what.
If I accepted responsibility for managing all of that, the work would remain large, just with different responsibilities.
Then a payment problem forced the issue. Several invoices had gone unpaid. Continuing at the usual pace would have meant adding more unpaid work while I waited for earlier work to be paid.
After many years in the relationship, it was uncomfortable to draw a hard line.
But I told the owner that I could not continue regular work until the overdue invoices were brought current.
I did offer to handle any genuine production emergencies that arose, but everything else would wait.
I want to make this clear. The payment problem did not create my desire to make the work smaller. That change was already underway.
But it made the old arrangement impossible to continue without reconsidering my current role.
It required me to decide what I was actually willing to keep doing.
It also showed me that the company's need for continuity could not automatically take priority over my need for a workable arrangement.
The overdue balance was eventually paid.
At that point, it would have been easy to let everything return to normal.
The immediate problem had been solved. There was still plenty of work to do. The company still needed help.
But solving the payment problem did not solve the larger problem.
The role was still too large for the life I wanted now.
So I began putting specific limits around it.
For one transition month, I agreed to work up to twenty-five hours.
After that, my aim became roughly ten to fifteen hours a month.
Those hours would be used mainly for production support, maintenance, small fixes, technical context, and answers to focused questions.
I could help describe a problem.
I could explain how an old system worked.
I could review a proposed change or help with something genuinely urgent.
But I would not manage the new support team, organize their work, set the company's priorities, or take ownership of the whole transition.
I would not quietly resume being available for whatever came up.
The distinction between support and ownership has mattered even more than the exact number of hours.
A person can work only a few hours and still carry a large role.
If every problem remains yours in the minds of those around you, the work is not really contained.
If everyone still expects you to decide what happens next, the responsibility has not become smaller.
If every weekday is treated as potentially available, a low hour total can still spread across the whole month.
So I have also had to become clearer about when I am not available and which decisions belong to someone else.
None of these boundaries stays in place simply because I stated it once.
After more than twenty years, the old expectations are familiar to everyone involved.
They are familiar to me too.
A narrow technical question can easily become a larger investigation into a problem. A request for a background explanation can turn into planning the whole project. A problem I know how to solve can still produce the old reflex that I should take care of it.
So I have had to apply the boundary again when each new request arrives.
Does this fit the smaller support role?
Or does it put the responsibility for the larger operation back on me?
Making the work smaller also has real costs.
- I am giving up income I could still earn.
- I am giving up some control over how the systems are maintained and how the transition proceeds.
- Other people may approach the work differently from the way I would.
- Some problems may take longer to resolve.
- And saying no to work I know how to do can still feel like letting someone down.
Smaller work is not cost-free.
But as part of making work smaller, I am willing to pay those costs now.
As a result, I'm now seeing the benefits of making work smaller.
I don't need to be available every day. A non-urgent email can wait. A problem can belong to someone else.
I can be useful without being responsible for the whole system.
The old work still has a place, but it no longer has to occupy every open space around it.
That leaves more time for my own projects, including Quiet Independence.
The most useful lesson so far is that making work smaller is not merely about deciding to work less.
It is also about the practical details surrounding the work:
- Hours.
- Availability.
- Scope.
- Payment.
- Ownership.
- Who decides what happens next.
- What counts as an emergency.
- Which responsibilities remain, and which ones no longer belong to you.
Work does not become smaller because you intend it to.
It becomes smaller when some of these specifics actually change.
That is what making work smaller looks like for me right now.
From time to time, I write about modest income, simpler work, and small ways to create more room in ordinary life.
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I explore this more fully in Making Work Small, a Quiet Independence guide to helping work take a calmer, smaller place in your life.