Work needs meaning

Hello again. In this post, I'm going to share a thought I had.

For the last six months, I've been struggling with not-so-interesting work. It was some things that I had to do that were so boring I almost believed that I didn't like my job anymore. I was in a downward spiral of thoughts about quitting and trying to follow a different career. My spirit had died as I had lost every drop of creativity that programming usually has.

In all that I had some people telling me that if I don’t enjoy what I do then it’s time to move on and do something else. Easier said than done though when you have a family depending on you.

So I started listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos about productivity, happiness, and well-being.

I got from this that people need some kind of meaning, ownership, and creativity in their work, to enjoy It and feel fulfilled.

After every YouTube video or podcast episode I watched or listened to, I felt motivated to continue the hard work and finish my assignments.

Inspired by these people I decided that I had to “create” meaning, ownership, and creativity in every task I had to do, to sustain my mental peace. So I started adding small touches of creative work within the boring stuff. And this kept me going for six months.

Although this tactic was helping, I was still feeling that I didn’t like this job anymore.

This was until I sat my ass down for a weekend and remade an old application that we use in the company. This time I used newer, better, and more exciting technologies. It was as if a light came upon me. I started enjoying coding again. I found my lost creativity, my inner peace. I will not get paid extra for the work I put in on the weekend, but I enjoyed every second of it and this is what matters most.

When I showed the remade application to my boss and colleagues, they all liked it a lot. They also said that they could see that I made it with love and attention to detail. From now on we will be using this new version of the application that I made.

I found meaning in this because it’s an essential application for the company’s goals.

I felt I owned the application because I created everything myself and made the necessary decisions. I felt I had ownership of the application because it is I who will continue supporting and developing it.

I found creativity in every decision I made and thought about how it should work.

Sometimes we have to do boring tasks in life (or work). Yet, we should try to find, or create, some interest within the tasks. When I had to code a boring redesign I tried hard to come up with something interesting to add to it. I ended up creating the interactive gradient scrollbar that I wrote about in a previous post. This was the little touch of creativity that I needed to get me going and finish the task.

Thank you, and have a great day!