Don’t let monotonicity win!
Published: 29 June 2017
Updated: 29 June 2017
It was not so long when I saw myself in a state of distress, even though I was doing great at and outside work. I was in a perfect daily routine, and this is when I asked to myself — “Am I challenging myself enough?”. I am sure a lot of you guys may have asked yourself this question at some point in time. If you have not done it yet then maybe it’s time to reevaluate the routine.
Please don’t kill the routine, look for monotonicity
Before the start of this year, I was not following a daily routine. Everything was random, for example, someday I will go for a run, and some days I will just skip it because Netflix was too important :). If you see yourself wearing my shoes right now then, I urge you to keep reading this article.
Surprisingly, I never asked the recent question — “Am I challenging myself enough?” last year but why? Was I doing a lot last year that I am not doing now? I will say — NO. I see myself doing more this year, and on every single day but it was the monotonicity that distressed me not my routine.
Having a routine is a great asset, it will make sure that you are making significant contributions towards your goals each day in an accountable form. It’s up to you what units you want to use for accountability.
What makes the most of your day?
Every adult spends a significant amount of time of their day doing work apart from sleeping. I see these two activities as reasonably long and continuous, but only one of them can result to monotonicity. So ironically the winner is “WORK” since everybody loves sleeping and nobody feels less challenged doing that :)
It is extremely important to make sure that work is not becoming monotonous. In my case, I saw myself solving a similar problem every single day, for example, changing some text on an app here and there, working on the same section of a code for months, etc.
If you are passionate about your work and you see yourself solving a similar subproblem every day, then it won’t take long enough before you throw your hands in the air and say — “I have had enough of this. Please give me something else”.
A perfect analogy to the situation is, you are passionate about playing guitar, but all you are given to work with is the string “E” and the first 3 frets. You can imagine how long it is going to take for someone to say a remark like above. But if you are true to yourself then sooner or later you are going to say it to the right person to move to a different challenge. The sooner you say it more are the chances that you will stick to your passion.
Initially, you may find it extremely difficult to say a remark like above if you are not self-employed depending on your situation. But, if it has started bothering you then it’s about time to say it. My advice is — be strong, be confident, be respectful, express yourself, and say it in the right tone. There is a whole universe out there, and you don’t need to bound yourself solving the same subproblem every single day.
What can you do on your own?
Sometimes, you need to wait for changes to happen. In the meantime, you can do things outside of work that allows you to divert your attention from the monotonicity, for example, I started blogging on Medium, I even created a whole list of articles that I want to work on in the following weeks, etc. You need to ask yourself what is going to divert your attention the most and it is always nice to do something that enables you to grow in a new dimension.
I wish you good luck in breaking your monotonicity and just remember that you don’t want to be friends with this diversion for long.