Readers Respond: How Do You Handle Boredom on the Job?

Responses: 5

"I have a good job with less paperwork and lots of flexibility. The problem is I am bored. Boredom leads me to be less productive and more disorganized. I guess a more accurate description of my problem is ‘lack of engagement’ on the job. Once I have gotten a reasonable understanding of my duties, I find I am not engaged enough to try to improve my skills or become more efficient. It's like I'm only stimulated to learn new things and once that has happened I want to move on.”

Frustration and boredom

I was just recently diagnosed with ADHD. I have had a really hard time being satisfied with jobs unless they really kept me going. I am now a paramedic and that helps stimulate me more, but I still have the feeling of extreme boredom and it just frustrates the heck out of me. Sometimes it's like, I bored, time to find something that catches my attention. When will it ever end?

—Guest Gabby

Boredom

I just wanted to say I feel exactly the same way this person feels. I was bouncing around relief job to relief job but I finally took on a permanent job and now I am feeling the boredom again. I wish I had a good answer but I can say that when I was on Adderall that feeling all went away. Unfortunately my body rejected this medicine. So now I am scratching on how to deal with this issue such as this fellow. I too want to see how others deal with this issue.

—Guest Rob

Boredom at Work

I am a free-lance translator, and the only way to deal with boredom (and also panic, if the job seems hopeless) is to have A LOT OF short breaks as rewards. Something like translating two sentences and reading a page of a novel (my favorite way of relaxing) and then continuing. In theory it takes a longer time this way, but in practice I think I actually finish sooner as I can keep my level of alertness higher. I realize this would be much more difficult in an ordinary working place situation, but there might still be some possibility of giving oneself constant little rewards - a walk around the office, something to nibble - during the day without upsetting anybody.

—Guest Helena

My Experience

I worked in engineering for 35 years and if I were to rate my performance, I think whenever there was a sense of urgency to complete projects and my boss was demanding and didn't micromanage but did hold me to deadlines etc., I was able to come through with flying colors. Later in my career when I couldn't move around because of family, I had to take jobs that were more routine, had office politics, and bosses that were less demanding/more political. I could not handle this very well until I got into meds, health food, breathing exercises, Yoga, mindfulness meditation and walking (synchronizing breath with steps while letting go of thoughts). This was hard to do but it got me to a point where I could handle the boring work without complaining too much. I actually believe that tough times such as my work experience in the seventies are better for ADD types. Companies are less likely to fund boring work, more focused on results and less on political correctness and quirky behavior.

—molsof

Boredom

I have lots of problems with boredom on the job when I am not feeling challenged or the work isn't related to any kind of wow factor. I found that I worried about my boredom translating to poor performance, but that seems to not be the case. I think this is one of those plus and minus things about Adult ADD. We are focused and efficient enough to get the work done in less time than it is expected to take, so even with feeling less productive and more disorganized - we might not always appear so to the bosses. Just something to check out to see if the problem is a problem from their perspective. If it’s not, then the challenge is to keep yourself challenged in whatever way you can, even if the job can't do it for you.

—John53705