In this article I’m going to talk to you about boredom at work. Or how not to get bored at work. Why is it important to avoid boredom and what are the possible solutions. Note that I base the solutions on my personal experiences and feedback.

Introduction

You’ve probably heard of burn-out. The discomfort that occurs when you work too much, when you have too much to do. It happens when cases get too extreme and the pressure too great, and the employee has to recuperate and stop working, or even treat himself before resuming an activity.

I’m willing to bet that you don’t know what bore-out is, though. To be honest, I didn’t know about it either until I started taking a serious interest in it. It’s quite the opposite. It’s what happens when you don’t have enough work, or when work turns your life into a tiresome, repetitive train. Boredom develops, you can’t find anything interesting to do, you don’t feel useful or you’re fed up with repeating the same similar tasks over and over again. You’re not a robot!

And we all know what happens when we don’t feel useful, don’t we?

WHY SHOULDN’T YOU BE BORED AT WORK?
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed time and time again, it’s that boredom in general and, consequently, boredom at work leads to depression, a lack of self-confidence and a lack of personal fulfillment.

WORK IS YOUR PRIMARY ACTIVITY
Because your work is normally your main activity, it’s best for you to enjoy what you do and the tasks you’re given. There is no specific number of hours that makes someone full or part-time, but a full-time worker will usually work 35 hours or more a week. That’s 7 hours a day, since it’s usually spread over 5 days. That’s a lot! And even then, we’re talking about “only” 35 hours, because in some cases it’s much more.

Can you imagine doing a job where you have almost nothing to do? Or, on another note, that your job is always so monotonous that you just don’t feel like getting up in the morning to go to work?

And don’t forget that this is your main activity, and therefore the vast majority of your life.

IT’S A WASTE OF TIME
It’s a total waste of time! 7 hours of your whole day to be bored and do nothing? Or wasting it on an activity that doesn’t suit you? That’s almost a third of your day! Time is a precious resource. It’s probably the most precious resource we can have if we don’t waste it. Time lost to boredom can never be recovered. On the other hand, you can save it, and here’s a good article on how to do just that: save time.

By way of comparison, let’s take the example of money: we often believe that money is an important resource. It is, but let me explain. If you lose money, you can always get it back. You can always manage to get more, or even more, if you so wish. What you’ve experienced is not. It may remain as a memory, as a photograph or video having immortalized the moment, but it’s impossible to relive the situation in exactly the same conditions. You can’t store or travel through time. So far, I think we’re in agreement.

If you’re not doing anything useful for the company, what’s the point of continuing to sell yourself? So don’t waste it doing a job that bores you, and change jobs if necessary.

TO BE FULFILLED
Have you ever noticed that, when you’re depressed, you always bring together the same physiological and psychological conditions? And one of them is boredom. The human being is set by default to hold on to negative things. We do this to protect ourselves from them and remain aware of what’s bad for us. Well, in this case, for us it means not being bored at work and banishing all forms of boredom.

To be as fulfilled as possible, you need to eliminate all those bad postures, all those bad states, everything that can pollute or harm your happiness. And boredom is generally one of them.

If you want to be happy, don’t neglect your professional development – it’s a major part of your life. You may be wondering why you’re not happy, why you’re tense, why you have problems.

Surely you must ask yourself the following questions:

Do I like what I do at work?
Am I sure that I’m not a victim of boredom at work?
How can I improve my situation at work?
Is it the company I don’t like, or my job itself?
Do I think I’ll be doing this job until I retire?

Tips to avoid boredom at work

That’s all very nice, but you’re not giving us any solutions, and you’re not answering the question: How can I avoid getting bored at work?

So, without further ado, I’m going to give you some food for thought, which I’m sure you’ll find useful. Note that there is no miracle solution, so I invite you to try for yourself and see the results. One thing’s for sure: if boredom at work is a problem that speaks to you, you’re going to have to do something about it!

PLAN YOUR TASKS
Make sure you always have something to do in the workplace. This means making sure you always have a task lined up. If you have a clear vision of what you’re going to do in the course of the day, you’re bound to feel like you’ve got a purpose and aren’t working for nothing.

Let me explain: when I’m given an assignment, it’s often a long-term one. It’s what I do for a living. So if you’re given an assignment that’s going to take you a long time, make sure you have 3 daily objectives that will contribute to the achievement of the assignment. That way, when you arrive at the office in the morning, you’ll know exactly what you have to do for the day.

This way, you’ll have the opportunity to shape the daily exercises, and you’ll retain freedom in the way you accomplish the mission at hand. Break the monotony at work and you’ll see that you’ll no longer have that famous problem of “getting bored at work”.
This may sound like a peculiar piece of advice, but I’m firmly convinced that if you apply it, you’ll feel busy and you’ll improve your working conditions.

DON’T STOP LEARNING!
Boredom at work is often the result of monotony. Doing the same thing over and over again, learning nothing new. Train once during your studies, then stop learning and get stuck in what’s known as the “rat race”. In other words, eat, work, sleep, work, sleep.

GET THE PICTURE?
It’s a metaphor for the daily grind. Like a little rat running around in a cage, but you don’t know what it’s after or why. To put some semblance of animation into your life, learn again and again. Have a thirst for learning – train yourself.
New knowledge will make you want to go further, explore new things and get out of your comfort zone. It will get you out of your rut.

HOW CAN I LEARN AT WORK?
Many positions in today’s companies offer employees the opportunity to train and upgrade their skills over time. It’s a practice that’s becoming increasingly fashionable these days. We need to take advantage of it.

I would also say that you shouldn’t wait for the company to offer it. If that’s not possible, try to improve yourself in your trade or activity and try to become an expert.

BE CREATIVE!
I admit it’s easier said than done. Especially in certain professions where expressing your creativity is not easy. However, it seems to me that it’s possible to be creative in many more situations and professions than you might think, and I’m going to give you a little tip for thinking outside the box. “Think outside the box, as they say!

SO, HOW CAN YOU BE CREATIVE?
When you’re doing a job, you’re doing it to meet a need, or to provide a service, or even to solve a problem. No doubt the customer or boss expects you to do one thing in particular, and tell you how to do it.
However, even if the expected result is always more or less the same, there are always several solutions. In most cases, and in most professions, there are multiple solutions.

Take the developer’s job, for example. If a customer asks: “I want a web page with a menu at the top, another on the left and my articles in the center”, you’ve got a solution.

The IT developer can find many different ways of providing this service. He can use different rules, code differently.

Let’s take one last example to make things even clearer. If I ask you for 10, you can give me 5+5, but also 7+3, 9+1 and so on. Do you get it?

So, to avoid getting bored at work, you can say to yourself: “Okay, what I’m being asked to do is always the same thing, but there’s not just one way of doing it! It’s about approaching the exercise from a different angle. Of course, it won’t be obvious the first time, but the very fact of asking yourself the question “How can I do it differently?” will make you think differently, and thus naturally kill boredom.

SOCIALIZE!
What does socializing have to do with work? Well, it’s pretty simple, but it seems so obvious that you probably haven’t thought about it. And yet, not everyone socializes at work. One thing’s for sure: you’re not paid to make friends. But that doesn’t mean you have to stay in your corner and protect yourself, or even distrust others.

WHY SOCIALIZE AT WORK?
The more you get to know people, the more you socialize, the more you’ll be recognized for your qualities. You’ll be more likely to get someone to come to you for help if they know they can count on you. Not everyone in the company you work for is in the same line of work as you, and that’s totally normal. And even if it is, not everyone does the same job in the same way. Everyone has their own way of doing things.

You’ll simply find that people often need your knowledge and help. It’s very fulfilling to help others at work and to share things, so I advise you to play along.

HOW TO SOCIALIZE AT WORK
To help you socialize easily with people at work, here’s a short list of simple and easy things to do.

Listen to what people have to say, and you’ll soon be held in high esteem for your listening skills and tolerance.
Ask them questions about what they do – most people love to talk about themselves.
Avoid talking about yourself too often unless asked.
Rather than giving them compliments (don’t force yourself), I suggest you encourage them in their task and show them how this or that action can be carried out.
If you don’t agree with someone, instead of trying to impose yourself, ask them why they think differently from you.

OTHER WAYS TO AVOID BOREDOM AT WORK
Before concluding, I’d like to suggest a few other ways of avoiding boredom at work. It seems to me that we can all fall victim to it to a greater or lesser extent, but that’s no problem. The important thing is to find solutions to change and to want to change the situation.

CHANGE JOB OR COMPANY
If it’s clear that you no longer enjoy your job to such an extent that it’s difficult for you to get up in the morning and have any semblance of motivation, ask yourself the right questions. What are you still doing in your company or at work when you no longer enjoy it?

Professional retraining is possible. What’s more, it could be the start of a new adventure in which you rediscover yourself. Who knows, maybe you’ll become passionate about it!

I simply recommend that you don’t wait until you’re 50 to start asking yourself the right questions.

IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP A GOOD ALTERNATIVE?
Entrepreneurship means starting your own business, selling your personal skills on your own account. Or innovating and adding value to society. Creating an activity, carrying out a project with an economic and social dimension, taking up challenges.

To do this, you need to create a company, your company. It’s a real challenge that can be extremely fulfilling. It’s the perfect way to avoid boredom at work, since the challenges are daily and have a real impact on you!

Conclusion

To conclude, everyone has their own subjective definition of work.
For some, work must be a chore, a necessity. However, I think it’s possible to combine passion and work, and the criteria I’ve provided you with can serve as very effective weapons to achieve this. It’s not simply a question of avoiding boredom at work, but rather of finding out what might motivate me at work?

And on this point, everyone is different, which is why it’s important to take a step back, reflect and take stock. Remember that everything that happens on the outside is a reflection of what’s going on on the inside.

What about you? What are your thoughts on the subject, and what tips do you have to combat boredom at work? Do you think these tips can help you?