MINDSET

When was the last time you heard someone babble about their job, their daily challenge, their excitement from a new project? Especially in the past two years, Covid has turned all business plans upside down. Most small and medium-sized companies sustain their business progress with normal operations, unable to take the risk to expand. The repetition of tasks drives their employees to boredom.

What about me?

The last time I heard someone disclose how interesting their job is was last Friday. Sometimes I get inspired, sometimes it reminds me of the negative aspect of work as people talk to me about their job. It also recalls when I was exceedingly passionate and gave 200 percent of my energy.

Moments like that make me feel bored.

Spending hours to figure out what would happen when people feel bored, or more specifically, bored at work, I have discovered many things and made some conclusions in this article, and I hope you will find it helpful.

What is boredom?

I believe this will surprise you.

The phrase ‘feel bored’ was introduced in the 17th century. Interestingly, humans had already colonized most of the territory Twelve thousand years ago, but not until only almost 400 years did they start to feel bored.

It’s because boredom is a social disease.

In the past, humans always needed to be prepared to face danger, so we did not have the time to be bored. On the other hand, there is an explosion of entertainment within today’s society. We would be awake most of the time, and there was always a variety of entertainment. However, this is like an addictive mechanism. The more entertainment content we have, the more we need to fill our minds. We are drowning in paradox.

We always want a day to have more than 24 hours to do more things. However, we do not know what to do with it when we have free time.

John Eastwood, director of Boredom Lab at York University, points out two types of personality that are associated with getting bored easily:

• The first type is called Explorers, who always look for new experiences. When there are no conditions to do that, they feel that the world lacks stimulation.
• On the contrary, the second type describes those who feel that the world is scary and get coiled up in their comfort zone. These people don’t know how to adjust their expectations, so they are always dissatisfied and bored.

In general, the critical attribute of boredom is the contrast between dreary reality and bright illusion. When we feel bored, we want simply anything to happen, as long as it can change the current situation. We hope that it will change in a good direction.

If you beat boredom in a wrong way

Fighting boredom might be an essential skill, especially for this generation era. Nowadays, most jobs require creativity, but we also have readily accessible sources of entertainment. That is an era where people would instead get an electric shock than sit still for 15 minutes in their room.

We can be entertained with countless content on the internet with only a phone, a charge, and a power outlet.

That ruined our discipline and our ability to cope with loneliness and boredom.

Boredom causes unfocus, procrastination, fatigue, and even makes you drop your work and engage in toxic habits.

There are two wrong ways to fight boredom:

• Constantly looking for stimulating experiences and prolonging them, we will become numb to our perception of little things in life, then gradually become emotionless.
• We choose to keep ourselves busy with work to stop thinking about an uncertain future and overcome self-improvement challenges. Accordingly, we become Zombies at our workplace.

If you beat boredom in a right way

• Boost creativity: Scientific research shows that people who get bored easily usually have better results in creativity tests than others.
  The Academy of Management in Australia surveyed two groups: 52 people will do a tedious task of separating green bean and red bean, and 49 people will do creative tasks with paper, bean, and glue. After that, both groups worked on a creative task: Coming up with a reason for a person who is two hours late for their meeting. The boring group had more ideas, and they were more creative.
• Have true relaxation: being bored in the right way can help your brain rest, drift away from your busy day, then you can come back to your productive day.
• Boredom has become a sign that your daily routine is starting to get boring. Now is the time for you to learn new skills.
• When you get caught in boredom, you have more chances to explore new things. Paula Scher — partner of Pentagram — told us that she did her best performances in the taxi.

How to fight boredom in a healthy way

• Learn how to maintain your inner fire.

• Make small changes every day, such as going on another route or using another vehicle to get to work.
• Take advantage of your free time to nap, ease your mind.
• Learn new skills, or try a new routine each month.
• Keep in touch with people who give out positive energy.
• Try to avoid seeking entertainment from technology in your free time. Instead, you can try reading a book, taking care of your plant, etc.
• These are some suggestions of what you should do when you feel bored
• 97 things to do when you are bored
• A website that gives solutions for boredom

Personal thought

Same as other emotions, if we do not accept that we are bored of something, we will never overcome that feeling.

We can try covering it up by saying otherwise, such as:

• “I am disappointed with the latest work performance.”
• “I find the working process and the growth of our team is so slow.”

But basically, it is a sign that shows your daily routine is starting to get boring.

We can avoid saying this to others. However, you must have the courage to face it yourself. Because no matter why you started, boredom will always appear to become one of your life’s greatest enemies.

And just like in video games, the stronger the boss, the greater the reward, which is:

Be persistent with your goals — A prerequisite for achieving anything you want.

Therefore, I wish you great boredom.