Make A Boring Job Interesting

Many of us may find ourselves strapped to a boring job. What's worse is we can't live without it because it's our main bread and butter. This is true not only for those who have menial jobs but also to white collar job holders as well.



How we look at our job affects how we work. If you find it boring chances are that you will be making less an effort doing it and before you know it, even the task of looking for a record would go on the "to do list" for tomorrow, creating backlog after backlog when you could have done it today. Instead of whining about how boring the job is, ever thought of making it more fun and interesting? If you can't change the situation, change you attitude towards it. You can't do this, however, if you look down on your job. Try looking up to it. Think of ways you can improve and leave your best mark on the job. Here are a few tips on how:

Challenge Your Self. Set a target, not only try to reach it but beat you record as well. Your job may be the most menial job in a world of menial jobs, like the burger flipper. You can make it more challenging by recording how fast you can flip a burger or take an order, then try to beat your record. Before you know it, you have not only enjoyed your job, you have delivered satisfaction to customers by your timely delivery of orders. Or are you the book keeper with lots of figures to tally? You can challenge yourself with how fast you can punch the calculator or number pad without looking at it. You will have done your job at half the time it usually takes, and have time for something else that you enjoy doing.

On a recent season of a reality game show of a race around the world, two teams were up against each other at the airport trying to book their flights. One team who arrived there five minutes later than the other, got on the flight because of how the desk clerk typed her way through it. The other team? They didn't get on the flight: the flight was fully booked. If you are the one behind that desk, you have not only gotten through the menial task of data processing, you have given a team an edge to winning that one million dollars. The day ended with a praise from the team: "Wow! She's fast!"

Improve Your Work Flow/Work Place. Does your work include looking for data that goes a long way as a few months back? You either have to look through a stack of papers or browse through your PC's documents folder. This takes up too much time is a very menial thing to do that you put it off for as long as it takes. You can however shorten the time it takes to find records by creating a database that will make data access faster. Browse through your personal computer's office applications, there is usually a user-friendly database application. If you do not know how to use it, educate yourself. There are a lot of tutorial e-books available online. This may take a few weeks or even months to do and would require a lot of time and work, but doing something is better than brooding about how boring your job is. Creating a database would improve your analytical skills as well. After the database is made, looking for data would be as easy as typing the date of the data your looking for and pressing the ENTER key.

Organizing your workplace may not be as fancy as creating a database. Have you noticed how messy your message board at work is? You keep missing shift schedules because you can't seem to find the right messages. Take it upon yourself to organize it. It may just be a matter of labelling as to General Info, Shift Schedules etc.

Create Competition. If you are bored with your job, chances are, your colleagues are too. Try to create or suggest competition in your work place. Tell your boss that the job is making you bored and is affecting your performance at work. Suggest a reward system; he would be happy to oblige since it would involve the performance of his employees. High performance would mean high production/sales. Rewards may not come in terms of money or compensation. It could be an award for "Best Employee of the Month/Week", "Best Burger Flip Record", "Best Encoder", the list is endless. Competition is competition and there is nothing sweeter than winning. Soon, you and your colleagues will be busy doing the best at your work, forgetting that it was ever boring.

Whatever your job is, show your best side. Leave your mark on it. Think of ways you can improve yourself and the job. By doing so, you improve and acquire skills that may come in handy when you land on your dream job.