How to be less bored with what you do

A lot of people I know including me (assuming that I know me well :) ) have this problem of getting bored with something within a short period of time. Why and how does this happen? For example, take your new smart phone that you killed yourself to get. What happens after a few months? If you belong to the general population you would get bored with it after a while.

Your job? This happens too. The job you always wanted seems a little boring after a few months or a couple of years. You want to do more or you get frustrated as to why there is no progress for you as well as why the company doesn't use your talents effectively.

After so many years of thinking about this from personal experience, this is what I figured out. Not many companies will make use of your full potential. This is a common feature in most companies, unless you are in a situation where resources are scarce and then you will work a 16 hour day to make up for 3 other members you should have in your team!

Many people leave companies looking for challenges. They feel they don't use their full potential. Most of the time, they don't find what they are looking for. If you feel like this, I may have the answer for you. Few principles to think about are:

1. If you have a lot of excess energy and passion for work, YOU need to make use of it. Its YOUR responsibility.
2. Any new activity that will seem challenging at first becomes easier as you gain practice and it seems less challenging. This is normal. You need to keep challenging yourself if you start feeling bored.
3. As long as you put in the required hours and deliver what you need to deliver, the company you work for will not complain.
4. Finding something more to do may not be always practical in the place of work.

This is the process that I have come up with to help you manage this excess energy. You can even use this for your current job, if there is a possibility to expand your role. REMEMBER - this will mean more work - one of the principles of success from Napoleon's book is that you have to do more that what you are paid for !!! I never said this is going to be easy did I?

1. Put down a list of things that you love doing.
2. Mark the ones that you don't have time to work on.
3. Pick the one which is most practical to do now.
4. It is also good to identify your strengths.

If you are a creative person, you could pick a few things which are creative but new to you. For example, if you are a highly creative technical person, you can take up music or even cooking or even interior designing as a hobby. Although this will be new to you, you can still learn something new as your basic talent is creativity. It may seem odd at first but the moment you develop this new skill you will feel much calmer. If your basic talent is organising, you can put your effort into things which need organising. This may be something in the community, a CSR activity or simply organising an event.

Key point - unless you have the passion to use your energy and do something different, you will not get anywhere!

The objective is to have a repertoire of things you can do when you feel bored! If today all you can do is either develop software, or sell a product effectively and yet you feel bored whilst getting high performance ratings, you are a good candidate for this. If you don't do something now, the chances are that you may feel unhappy about your life and your work even if you perform well. Something always seems to be missing :).

Over the years I have developed a few things that I do just to get rid of my excess energy. These are in line with my strengths. The basic strength I have is creativity and the need to improve something from what it is. I also need a base to work with and then keep improving it as I go along. I used this concept in learning to cook, to compose music and start writing. I also like to teach people how to improve themselves. This is all in addition to my job that does take a load of my time. This helps me to feel less bored with life as I have a few things to keep me occupied during the time I am awake! And during the time I am asleep? Well I'd rather not say :)