Are Your Bored at Work?

Do you know when you’re bored? Do you make repeated trips to the fridge, find yourself leaving your desk to get coffee more than you really need to, stopping what you’re doing to chat with a co-worker? Maybe you’re spacing out, checking your phone and social media a lot, going through the motions in meetings, or even kicking up a little interpersonal drama with co-workers? Sounds like boredom to me. Boredom can actually be as stressful for us as over working. Either way we can become exhausted, demotivated and resentful.

The Perils and Possibilities of Boredom

Lately I’ve been hearing more clients talk about their boredom at work so I know it’s a trend. What worries me is that I heard this a lot from folks a year before The Great Recession…and I probably don’t need to tell you that after that clients either didn’t have a job, or they were stretched to the max doing three jobs at once. So let’s see what you can do to re-engage and make the most of where you are.

4 Strategies to Banish Boredom at Work

1) Awareness. You have to know what’s boring you to slay this dragon. Get clear about what aspects of the work you’re doing are dragging you down. Are you alone too much? Is the work repetitive? Too much detail when you’re a big picture person? Once you know the real issue you can figure out how to break this into a problem to solve.

2) Know why you’re doing this work. It can be easy to take our work for granted and start to have a ‘wandering eye’…the grass can look greener when we forget to appreciate what we have. Make an exhaustive list of what works for you in your job. What needs is this job fulfilling. Why are these important to you?

3) Take action to recommit to your job. If the list you made shows that this job is worth it to you, do what you can to approach your work with a fresh view. We can call this Beginners Mind – starting your job all over again with curiosity and hope. If this is the case, who would you want to get to know, what projects might you approach differently to put your own stamp on them?

4) Get ready for the next job. If you now realize this isn’t the place or job for you, now’s the time to get ready to leave. Start looking for new opportunities and know what
experience or skills you can still beef up to be a great candidate for the next job you
want. Find the people you need to network with while at your current job, and work on
getting recommendations on LinkedIn. Be smart about allocating your time so you can
do a great job and leave with a great recommendation from your boss, while making
time for the job search in your off hours. This is no time to slack off!

If you need more ideas or support as you take next steps, I’m here to help. Reach out to
[email protected] and we’ll set up a free consultation call to see what we can do together.