personal growth

Boredom isn’t productive.

So make some changes!

As I waited in a Post Office line, I watched the clerk.  She looked to be so deep into the doldrums that she could barely hear her customers. It seemed that, when she finally took in a request, she’d move in slow motion, lethargically searching through stacks of paper with her eyes half closed and her mouth half open.

As the minutes ticked on, I became annoyed.  Then I thought, “Oh, I’d hate to have her job.”  So I was feeling more empathetic when it was finally my turn.  By then, nobody was behind me in line, so I engaged her in conversation. 

I said I needed to mail my passport for renewal, and led her into a discussion about the safest way to send it.  I made a big deal about my worries, and soon she was lending me a pen and making gentle fun of my concerns.  And we were laughing together. 

The clerk may have been overwhelmed by the monotony of her job.  But she seemed to wake up when she connected with, and focused on the needs of, another person.  Shifting your attention to somebody else’s problems is a classic way to beat back boredom.

You know what it’s like to feel bored, don’t you?  When nothing seems challenging, and gradually you feel less and less creative?  When you’re bored, you might be keeping busy, and yet you’re not getting enough stimulation to stay interested.

On the job, unproductive boredom seems to be the opposite of what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has called “flow.” You’re in flow when your work is so absorbing you lose track of time. It’s like you are playing a game that is so much fun you forget about everything else.

Csikszentmihalyi, who has been studying the satisfying flow state for decades, describes it as a time when “action follows upon action according to an internal logic that seems to need no conscious intervention by the actor.”

You are more likely to find yourself in flow, and not bored, when: [Read more…] about Bored at work? Make new choices!