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How to Overcome Laziness at the Workplace? – Part 3
By admin | May 2, 2008
7. Nothing Personal
On a typical work day, there is an equal chance for good events as well as bad events. We should never let the bad moments from the workplace to be carried along with us into our personal life, family life or into our subsequent workday.
All the events that happen at work, such as ‘we couldn’t meet a deadline’ or ‘someone is not cooperating’ or ‘the boss is not happy with us’ aren’t any great memories to be taken home or dwelled upon for a lifetime.
We should never carry such memories home with us and should never continue worrying even for another day as it will disrupt our mood, family environment, as well as the next few days at work. If we continuously imagine the workplace as a place where we’re not happy, it will create an image in our mind that may never let us like our workplace again.
If the boss is mad, we might instantly feel that he doesn’t like us anymore and this feeling might keep haunting us whenever we think about work. It may become even worse when we are at the workplace.
If our boss is not happy, we are not happy. Does it make any sense? We are not ourselves if we allow our moods to be controlled by external events that are happening around us. If someone is sad, do we have to do the same to the people around us?
It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurt us.
- by Steven R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Think of this: “If our boss doesn’t really like us, why does he still keep us employed?” Perhaps he screamed at us because, he had a bad time at home or with one of his clients or in traffic. Everything in the workplace happens for the business, not to disturb our mood.
If something happens in the workplace that’s driving us nuts, we should never take it personally. As long as we understand it’s for the business and shouldn’t take it personally, we don’t have to worry about it at all. By thinking this way, we can free up our mind from such negative thoughts about the workplace and instead fill it up with fun memories.
“If I see the workplace as a place where I enjoy, will I ever be lazy to work?”
8. Make more Friends
Everyone likes to spend time with their friends. This is also one of the major reasons for us to get excited about the weekends and holidays. How about having friends at the workplace? If there are none, why don’t we start making some friends?
The best way to make friends is to offer help when they need and to get help when we are in need.
I don’t mean to always gossip at the water fountain or in the corridor during work hours. Instead, we can spend time with friends in the lunch break or other times when we are free from work or when we want to take a small break on busy day.
Taking a brief break from the work and spending time with friends will also help boosting our productivity. Of course, don’t force anyone or disturb their work routine to have conversation or chat.
I suggest the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi that discusses how valuable is building relationships and how can we easily make friends.
If we have friends at the workplace, it’s always fun being there. If we have fun with our friends at the workplace, it motivates us to spend more time there. As we discussed in Part-1 of this series, if our brain finds fun being in someplace, it encourages us to be there as much as possible. If we have more friends at the workplace it will no more be seen as someplace were we go everyday and spend all our energy until burnout.
The feeling of being with the friends at the workplace helps us get out of the bed and cheerfully get ready for work every morning. We will be as enthusiastic as waiting for the Mondays as we do for the weekends.
If the workplace is a friendly place, there is no place for laziness.
9. Document Everything
When we come across a problem at the workplace, we generally spend most of time in researching the problem, rather than fixing it. It may take anywhere from a few hours to days to complete the research, depending upon its complexity. Once we figure out the right solution, it doesn’t take much of our time or effort to fix the problem. Once the problem is solved, we celebrate and move onto another problem.
After a few months later, we might encounter the same problem again. We will make an effort to recall how we solved it in the past but can’t because there is no record of the problem. So, once again we have to go through the same painful process of researching (re search = search again ?) which is a very stressful. At this moment, it strikes to us that it would have been much easier if the solution process was properly recorded the first time when we solved the same problem. We sincerely promise to our self that we will never repeat the same mistake ever again. But, once get over the situation, we tend to forget all the pain we went through and, once again, will fail to document.
Many of us would have gone through the same situation several times but we have never changed a bit. It’ because, we are living in a reactive world where we never act until something really happens.
This process can be made enjoyable by including one more step into the problem solving mechanism. The problem shouldn’t be called as “fixed” unless it’s properly documented. I would say, the celebrations should always follow the documentation of the whole solution process. Documentation works like a telephone directory that helps us quickly find solutions for most of the problems.
This helps us eliminate the stress out of worklife by reducing the time and effort spent in dealing with most of the problems.
When the work is easy no one gets lazy.
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Also Read:
Part-1: How to Overcome Laziness at the Workplace ? – Part 1
Part-2: How to Overcome Laziness at the Workplace? - Part 2
Topics: Uncategorized |
May 4th, 2008 at 8:39 am
nice techniques to enjoy our work, can you please add some article on how to deal with difficult people at work and seek more cooperation with them.
May 12th, 2008 at 10:21 am
The part most I liked is ‘Make more friends’.. It really helps to convert your strength of making friends into productivity at the work. It is really a bless to have friends at work place.