Work is a fundamental part of nearly everyone’s life. It provides a financial means to pay bills, support a family and create a sense of identity and purpose. It also allows people to learn new skills, connect with others and build a routine. And for some, meaningful work can even boost self-worth and confidence, while facilitating the pursuit of passions that lead to better mental health.
In the simplest terms, work is the transfer of energy that moves an object (or system) over a distance. The amount of work done is equal to the force applied multiplied by the displacement, or f(d). The SI unit for work is the joule, same as that for energy.
The physics concept of work is a bit more complicated than the simple example. The important thing to remember is that work transfers energy, not momentum. An example is a baseball pitcher throwing a ball upwards. The ball’s weight does positive work on the ball over the distance it travels while in his hand. But the ball’s velocity will not change because the centripetal force exerted on it is perpendicular to its speed.
When an object is at rest or moving at a constant velocity, no work has been done. However, as an object is accelerated over a distance the total amount of work done on it will increase. This is because the net acceleration of the object, which is the sum of all the forces acting on it, will be greater than the initial acceleration.
As the acceleration of an object increases, the amount of work done will increase accordingly. This is because the net force acting on the object will be a larger proportion of its mass times its acceleration, and therefore will have more effect.
In more general systems, work can change the potential energy of a mechanical device or the thermal energy in a thermal system. It can also transfer the electrical energy of an electric circuit. The term work is also used to refer to any activity involving effort or exertion, whether it is physical, intellectual or emotional. The words labor, travail, toil, drudgery and grind imply prolonged and fatiguing exertion.
For some, finding meaningful work is not easy. It takes time to find a career that fits one’s personality and interests, and it’s normal to have some bad days at the office. But a good way to keep a positive mindset is to balance parts of the job that don’t make you happy (e.g., updating Excel spreadsheets or hopping on discovery calls) with other parts of the job that you enjoy (e.g., working with clients or learning new skills).
The key to redefining work is shifting all workers’ time, energy and attention from executing routine, tightly defined tasks to continually identifying and addressing unseen problems and opportunities. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as adding employee suggestion boxes or 20 percent time, or even changing the composition of the workforce. It requires cultivating and drawing on intrinsic human capabilities to pursue work for different purposes.