Why you should be bored at work

These tips may not all be helpful. They are addressed to those who at work can be boring. So boring that despondency is only brightened up a little by the morning contact and the afternoon YouTube. That's it from them you have to give up. What for? Now find out.

Seriously, turn off YouTube. Closely move Vkontakte with a voluntary movement of the mouse. Unsubscribe from the channels with news and jokes. Do you feel? Feel like silence, emptiness and intolerable boring things? Yes, that is exactly what we need! Let this feeling embrace you! Feel it! Feel how the brain languishes from hunger. As he asks for at least a piece of information. Anything to think about! He wants to hear about the bloody regime and funny cats. Like, there will be seals? Not even the stranger himself? Well, then ... Hey, and remember, you could not manage to write that asynchronous loading module? Align button vertically? Find a drop-down list? Maybe even think about it? Or take that text rejected by the marketing department? What word did they find fault with, "crazy"? And if you change to "crazy"? Oh, how are you? Rather, open the editor! You did not know how to implement that function - let's write the test first! Parallelize the threads! Wrap up flexbox!

Do you understand what happened to the brain? He had nothing to do, and he himself began to look for tasks and solve them - after all, he simply had no choice! When there is no entertainment, programming itself becomes the entertainment (layout / design / copywriting ...). For any task that is rather complicated and creative, the brain will lash out with gratitude. She will be interesting to him! You can slip him all the "tough nuts" for which you were afraid to take. That is exactly the tasks that we love to postpone so much - after all, it is completely incomprehensible even from which side to approach them. As soon as you remember such a task, the hand itself reaches for the mouse to open the tab with the cats. The real procrastination. Here at this moment you have to hold on. If you do not know how to solve this problem - ok, do not solve it, but do not get distracted by cats! Allow yourself to just sit without doing anything. Look at the ceiling or just close your eyes. Do not think about anything. Bring the brain into a state of familiar informational hunger, in other words, boredom. And the case will move!

Well, you figured out the challenge. You wrote a solution. Now you wait for the project to compile and run, or to run tests (or marketing will approve your text). This is another dangerous moment when you can break. It would seem that you are good and you can already go to look at the seals? No, there is no place for cats here! Your brain should always be on a starvation diet. Open a task board or a list of bugs and just look at them. You can do nothing! (But I would not be surprised if you want to read one bug ... and then see if it is playing ... and then you decide that it can be fixed in a second ...)
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But what if the task is not complicated enough, and even the “hungry” brain is bored with it? After all, there are simple tasks, but tedious and monotonous. Usually these are processes in which you need to repeat the same action with some variations. Here, the brain can be given the task to think about the process itself. Is it possible to simplify it somehow? Select duplicate and changing parts, and then automate? Such a task will certainly be interesting to the brain. That is, the principle is the same: the mental resources that used to be spent on entertainment - that is, something that is not related to your current tasks - you are redirecting to the creative direction.

There is still that short moment between the past and the future , when you have already returned from dinner, and the lunch break is not over. Here you can relax and admire the cats ... but only on analog, offline! Or chat with colleagues, take a walk around the office, play ping-pong. The brain must rest without a computer! If he now picks up the vidos with jokes, he will ruin his appetite, and your “diet” will go down the drain.

Finally, some may find it difficult to start work in the morning or after a break. This method will help: while you go to work, imagine what you will do first. Imagine that you already came to the office, sat down in your chair and turned on the computer. Where do you start? Which file will open? You type the first line of code - what will it be? When you come and sit at the computer, you will only have to do what you have presented. Moreover, you will want to do it as soon as possible: the brain does not like it when things “hang” over it, which it has already thought about and is fully ready to do.

So this is the point: let your brain resources not be wasted. Yes, after all, resources are also required for reading jokes. In addition, because of the constant flow of entertainment, the brain learns to think about what requires more time and concentration. Not to mention that extraneous thoughts litter the mind! Put your brain on a diet. Teach him to useful "food" - although it is harder to "digest", in the end it is she who develops the ability to think. Do not be afraid of boredom: it is a state that precedes inspiration. And, as Pelevin said: “Consciousness is not necessary to expand or deepen ... it should be gradually cleared”.

Anyone who has read it - cat as a gift!