Boring work: what to do?

First, let's figure out what they meanunder boring work. When people say that they have a boring job, they can mean completely different things. Sometimes boring work means really necessary work, the performance of which does not bring pleasure. These are routine duties that catch up with boredom, but you can not do without them.

In some cases, boring work is work routine, but meaningless, not useful. For example, writing New Year's greetings for partners and clients, which no one else reads. Or the notorious office shifting of papers from place to place. And if in the previous case you can at least reassure yourself that your work is necessary to someone, a meaningless boring job is not justified in any way.

Another option of boring work is when at work there is nothing to do at all. Sometimes this is the specificity of the profession (say, workguard cheerful obviously you will not name), and sometimes the problem is that the authorities do not know how to properly assign assignments. It turns out that about half a month you work tirelessly, and the second half - do not know what to do with yourself, and all day long you are bored in the workplace.

What can be done in each of the cases? If you have a boring job, but at the same time what you are doing is really important, try to find positive things in your work, motivate yourself. If altruistic motivation ("what I amdo, benefit others ") does not work, try motivating selfish (" by doing this work, I will get a prize / I can expect to be promoted ", etc.). And if the reward "from outside" you after the performance of work does not wait, come up with a reward yourself. Promise yourself to finally go to a new coffee shop, or at last buy that dress.

If the work is boring and at the same timemeaningless, then everything is more complicated. Needy routine work often leads to problems with health, depression and even professional burnout. Here, changing attitudes toward work is unlikely to help. There are two ways out: or take the initiative, hoping that you will be promoted, or to leave and look for another job, more interesting.

As for the third kind of boring work, there are several options. Either leave or tolerate (if, say, they pay well), or to figure out how to take care of yourself. The third option, unfortunately, does not always work. For example, the same guard on duty should not be distracted by extraneous matters. Or bosses are watching what you are doing at work (here, however, there is a paradox: and there is nothing to do, because there is no work, and forbidden to engage in extraneous matters). And then we return to the variant "to suffer or to quit".

Well, if no one watches what you do in the workplace, and you do not have current job assignments, a boring job can very well benefit you. You can spend this time on self-education or professional growth: doing routine business, we often do not have time to be aware of new products in our area and read the profile literature. Can do creativity. For example, the American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, working as a customs overseer, wrote four novels, including the novel "The Scarlet Letter" that brought him wide recognition.

And it is worth remembering that often boring work is the work that we consider boring ourselves. For example, someone considers boring to work withfigures, and to someone it seems interesting and even exciting. This is a matter of preferences and preferences. So if your work seems boring to you, you first need to think about whether it really is boring objectively, or simply "not your" job. And if the second option is your case, you should either try to change your attitude to work, or try your hand at another field.