{"id":3200802,"date":"2024-04-01T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2024-04-01T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/?p=3200802"},"modified":"2024-04-01T11:17:14","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T15:17:14","slug":"boredom-work-productivity-3200802-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futurity.org\/boredom-work-productivity-3200802-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ignoring boredom at work hampers your productivity later"},"content":{"rendered":"
Suppressing boredom at work hurts future productivity, a new study shows.<\/p>\n
Boredom is more common at work than in any other setting, studies show, and employees are bored at work for more than 10 hours per week on average.<\/p>\n
Even astronauts and police officers get bored on the job. No occupation is immune.<\/p>\n
Boredom serves an important purpose\u2014it signals the need to stop an action and find an alternative project. But boredom becomes problematic when it’s ignored.<\/p>\n
The new research shows that trying to stifle boredom prolongs its effects and that alternating boring and meaningful tasks helps to prevent the effects of one boring task from spilling over to reduce productivity<\/a> on others.<\/p>\n The research appears in the Journal of Applied Psychology<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n The researchers sought to understand if, when, and why experiencing boredom now might lead to attention and productivity deficits later. They tested these possibilities in three studies that examined the consequences of boredom on a task-to-task basis.<\/p>\n The first study drew on data from dual-career families working in a variety of industries. Participants responded to multiple surveys per day at different intervals, enabling the team to examine the relationships between boredom, attention and productivity over time. Follow-up studies used alternative methods to reach a broader audience and focused on how meaningful work tasks help mitigate boredom’s prolonged effects.<\/p>\n Boredom is viewed as a nuisance emotion that any strong-willed employee should subdue for the sake of productivity<\/a>, says lead author Casher Belinda, an assistant professor of management at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business who specializes in emotions, interpersonal communication, and close relationships within organizations.<\/p>\n