Career Coaching | 8 Ways to cure Boredom at Work

Are you bored at work? Unhappy but due to personal circumstances can’t leave just yet?  Or like your job, but don’t want to leave, trouble is the same excitement when you started just isn’t there?

If either is true you will need some ways to make work interesting in the mean time. And anyway even the most exciting job can go a bit stale after we’ve been in it a while.   Once boredom has taken hold it affects how we feel about our job, our career and life as a whole. We may become a little less happy and we lose our career drive and even our drive for life.

Here are some tips that should help lessen the boredom:

1. Action a review. If you looked in on yourself, your job and your life, what do you see? What would others see if they looked objectively? Removing yourself for a little while from the daily routine and looking at everything with an objective mind will help you find things you could change.
2. What excites you? Part of number 1 is to check what interests do you have outside of work? What really excites and motivates you? After all you are so much more than just your career. Find a new hobby.  If you find your personal life isn’t very exciting,  explore, try some hobbies or join new groups and find something you really enjoy.
3. Change daily routines.  Maybe you could start with a different task, mix things up a bit, change the time you take a break, make your calls in the morning, don’t check emails for 2 hours, etc. Just think of the little things you could change to break up the daily grind. Perhaps drive a different way to work or on the way home. If your job allows you to be flexible, then think about mixing this up a bit more. You could maybe decide to work from home some days to break the cycle.
4. Make new friends at work. You could try to meet other people, from other work  areas. Start looking around. Is there maybe someone or a group of people who you like the look of? Find a way to introduce yourself and see how things go.
5. New Projects. Ask for new tasks or a new project that could broaden your areas of responsibility.
6. Learn something new.  A great way to fight boredom is to study a new and exciting thing related to your job. Have a look at what’s new  in your area of work and start studying it. You might even find a course to go on. Building skills is a good career investment.
7. Volunteer.  A good way of expanding your job role is by volunteering to do things that are outside your current job scope.  Find out what the company is doing both internally and in the community. See it as an opportunity to learn new things and meet people in a different area.
8. Re-frame the Mind Talk. Through this time check what your mind is saying to you.  Now that your being proactive you can start to turn around negative comments. So when your internal mind goes “I’m bored and frustrated”  remind your self that you are being pro-active and list the things you have done so far to manage it.

So come on no time like the present choose one of the above and control the boredom!

Contact Allison Fisher, Career & Life Coaching, to discuss your career.