Being hospitalised and in isolation with Influenza and exacerbated asthma, I was suddenly thrust into an unfamiliar world where I could hear; hushed voices in the corridors, beeping machines and hurried footsteps. There is something very humbling and sobering about hearing the excited buzz of the aftermath of someone being saved from a cardiac arrest and the realisation that the next time the emergency buzzer rang that person wasn’t so lucky. Sat in my bed thinking about how the hospital ward ran like a well-oiled machine and reflecting on what an amazing job all the staff do, I had an unexpected encounter with the hospital cleaner that had a lasting impact.
The hospital cleaner, a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, entered my room in a mask, apron and gloves then asked if he could clean my floor. As he meticulously mopped the floor, moving my belongings to make sure he covered every inch, he did so in an automated fashion, appearing vacant and robotic. I commented about it being a never-ending task and he began telling me about the challenge of spending eight hours a day on autopilot, how he needed the money and couldn’t think about the monotony of mopping all day or he would be depressed.
Attempting to lift his spirits, I told him that in my opinion he was saving lives, after all the bacteria he was cleaning up from the floor would have impacted at least one poorly patient if he had not been doing his job so diligently. I told him how he remined me of the story of President Kennedy’s visit to NASA in 1962 where the President encountered the janitor and in response to being asked about his role the janitor said, “I’m helping put a man on the moon, Mr President.”
On recounting this tale, a noticeable transformation occurred with the cleaner’s demeaner. As he paused to process the information he laughed, nodded, then smiled. He told me that he had never thought about his work in that way and said, “I am saving lives aren’t I”. It suddenly hit him that his work was an integral part of a larger mission, he had a renewed sense of purpose and left my room thanking me and telling me he felt proud of what he does. He hummed a happy tune and said a cheery “Good Morning” to his customer and for the first time in days, I also had a smile on my face knowing I had helped someone realise the significance of their contributions at work.
Reflecting on this encounter I thought about the many occasions throughout my career where I had undertaken monotonous, mundane and mind-numbing tasks and the lessons I had learned to help me stay motivated and engaged along the way. Taking a moment to pause, consider and reflect on how tasks contribute to the bigger picture, providing valuable perspective, is one of them. Here are some of the others:
1. Focus on the Long-Term Vision: Focusing on the overall organisational vision can be a powerful motivator and taking time to consider your personal long-term vision can be even more powerful. Whether this is working towards; securing a promotion or pay rise, saving for a new car, a house move or for a special family holiday, taking time to recognise that the tasks you are undertaking, no matter how mundane they might seem, contribute to this longer-term vision will definitely help.
2. Prioritise and Manage Time Effectively Creating Room to Introduce Variety: There are a plethora of time management techniques that you could use to give you structure and help prevent burnout. My moto is Keep it Simple (KIS), divide the work into segments, work for a set amount of time and have a small break. You could challenge yourself by aiming to complete more of the task each set amount of time and have something nice planned for each small break, for example; having a quick social call planned with a friend, playing with your pet, (if you work from home), grabbing a quick coffee with a colleague, listening to a favourite music track etc.
3. Set and Commit to Goals to Challenge Yourself: Break down monotonous and mundane tasks into smaller achievable but stretching goals to foster a sense of progress and accomplishment. The trick is to make them challenging and to ensure you publicly commit to them. You can do this by; letting a colleague know, sending your Line Manager an email to set expectations or writing a post on an intranet site.
4. Embrace Teamwork: Everyone has their own version of mind-numbing tasks they have to undertake and these will differ for each individual. Working as a collaborative team, in a supportive environment, towards common goals can be extremely helpful. You might even find that a task you hate to complete is loved by another team member opening an opportunity to trade these.
5. Create a Competition and Inject a Sense of Fun: If you’re competitive in nature work with your wider team to create a competition. Find commonalities between yours and your peers’ mundane tasks and use these as a daily/ weekly benchmark. Don’t forget to have an agreed reward ready for the winner. If on the other hand you’re not competitive in nature, then find other ways to inject a sense of fun. I remember heading up a national complaints team for a UK Corporate where my team worked to resolve customer complaints all day every day and I made it my mission to make the days fun. This involved me randomly turning to the office in fancy dress, encouraging silly office dares, (like walking sideways in the office all day without peers noticing) and having breaks to share silly stories.
6. Give Yourself Permission to Grumble: Grumbling for the sake of it is frowned upon in the corporate environment today however giving yourself permission to do this, in a safe environment, can help reduce frustration. In one role I introduced Whinge Wednesday, a 15-minute meeting with close colleagues, where we could all have a moan about things we were frustrated about, without being judged. It was surprising how many times this resulted in one of the group coming up with a new approach to address a challenge.
These strategies are some of the things I have done throughout my career that have helped me successfully push through the monotonous, mundane, mind-numbing tasks to cultivate a more purpose-driven motivated mindset. Hopefully, you find some of them useful and I would love to hear about different techniques that you use.
I love Whinge Wednesday – that is genius, allows the cathartic need but puts boundaries on it – brilliant !