How to cure work-related boredom

PimpYourWork.com

Do you sometimes feel like a pet hamster running around the same exercise wheel day in and day out?  It may be exciting at first, but you’ll get bored eventually.  Don’t worry – boredom at work doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to switch jobs or get a promotion.  There are some simple things you can do to make monotony and uniformity go away.

Add variety to your work tasks.  If it’s always report-meeting-business call repeated ad infinitum, you’d definitely get bored. Try to find a way to get different types of work/projects for yourself, rather than settling for what you’re used to.  Apart from showing your versatility, this also prevents work from being monotonous.

Matt Elliot over at YWorking has a related tip: don’t delegate all of your creative tasks. A quote from that article:

Often, you’re forced by a time crunch to step away from that sort of work for a while, but do not make that a permanent thing. Whenever you get a chance, step back into the creative realm and remind yourself what it feels like. Your own professional morale just might depend on it.

Source: YWorking

Be creative with your breaks.  If you work in a strict business environment, odds are it’s hard to input some random activities into your workday. Since your working hours are a routine, don’t let your breaks fall into the same pattern.  Apart from eating a different snack or going someplace else for lunch, here are some alternate activities you might want to consider:

• Drop by a park or museum for the rest of your break and just walk leisurely
• Take a nap
• Draw cartoons at the back of your business cards (or on the free napkins that go with your coffee during your coffee break)
• Work on a hobby (I know a guy who works on his diorama models whenever he’d get a break at work.)

Get a dose of humor and play.  From reading the latest Dilbert comic strip to sharing a good joke in the employee lounge, it’s easy to include humor in the workplace – unless you’re working with the Borg.  Also, you can turn basic elements of office life into play.  Play in the office can range from aiming garbage at your wastebasket a la basketball, to a full-on office sportsfest.  Having both good-natured humor and an element of play in the office not only boosts camaraderie and morale, it also helps improve creativity among employees.

Change your environment.  If you’re facing a blank wall all day, then of course you’ll be bored.  Take advantage of mobile technology (laptops and Wi-Fi, for example) and work in a different area in the building.  Of course, you might risk looking like you’re missing in action, so notify your supervisors and colleagues about your whereabouts.

If it’s still impossible for you to leave your workstation, try to make some changes with the decor.  Add a little “shrine” of trinkets that will motivate/inspire you.  A plant or a rock garden might even help.  Or sometimes, even a simple furniture rearrangement can do the trick.

Know that adding ’spice to your worklife’ doesn’t have to be big.  You don’t necessarily have to write a formal proposal to your boss about how to include “fun” in the workplace.  Sometimes, all it takes is some simple, baby steps to add a dash of excitement and unpredictability to your work.

Photo Credit: Image from Christina Patronis from stock.xchng