Research Hit: Suppressing Boredom at Work Hurts Future Productivity
Counter-intuitively suppressing boredom seems to increase the negative effects of boredom and attention on following tasks
So are you saying that just being bored is better than trying not to be bored?
That is kind of the take-away from this research by Belinda Casher and colleagues of the University of Notre Dame.
But isn’t this bad in the workplace?
Well, yes, this is why this sort of research is important - unfortunately lots of jobs have boring aspects to them which may include something monotonous and mundane.
Casher et al. investigated the impacts of this in different professions over time by keeping track of attention and productivity. Though it might feel like it is a good idea to suppress boredom i.e. put on a brave face and bash on through it - their data showed that this seemed to extend the negative impacts of boredom!
So what is the antidote then?
Well, there is no antidote - but the paper did note that a more careful balancing of tasks is more effective. So intersperse boring stuff with more interesting stuff. And don’t try to suppress boredom. They didn’t actively investigate cognitive strategies but may be just accepting this boring stuff and knowing you can get onto something more interesting after would help minimise the resulting deficits in attention and increase in errors.
I actually quite “enjoy” some mundane tasks - I don’t have to think!
Me too - yes, it can also be a relief…just not for too long.
Another note is that boredom is not all bad as HBR reported here. The mind wandering can also stimulate creativity and allow the brain to recover for more intense cognitive efforts.
So a bit of boredom may be a good thing!
Yup! And the same applies to your kids also.
Reference
Casher Belinda, Shimul Melwani, Chaitali Kapadia.
Breaking boredom: Interrupting the residual effect of state boredom on future productivity
Journal of Applied Psychology, 2024
DOI: 10.1037/apl0001161