No matter how meaningful or rewarding your job is, every job has its boring parts. If these boring parts are demotivating you and making it harder to wake up in the morning, there are a few things you can do to change your thinking about the parts of your job that you hate. The first thing you should do is see those parts as part of a bigger mission. Lots of research suggest that when you view your work as a vocation or calling, then you feel better about your work life in general. To do this, you need to find ways that your job connects to something bigger than yourself. In what ways does your work make your corner of the world a better place? Once you make that connection, even the boring parts of your work will have some meaning. Another way to overcome the boring parts of working is getting into some sort of flow state when you’re performing boring tasks—which are often the repetitive ones. Repetitive tasks make your brain feel the slog of time passing slowly, but by tapping deeper into your cognitive resources and picking up the pace, you can get your work done quicker while no longer noticing time going by. The third and final thing you can do to make your boring tasks more bearable is by giving yourself a little reward. Yes, bribe yourself. Find something you like to do (or eat) and save it for when you complete the task. Of course, there is always a danger in using extrinsic rewards, because they can diminish the intrinsic joy of the task itself. But, if the task you’re doing has no redeeming qualities, then you have nothing to lose!
Change the way you feel about the boring parts of work to get them done quicker
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