How to stop languishing at work
Use ‘flow’ to get back to healthy work habits
The answer to getting back to productive work habits lies in focus and absorption, as well as constantly challenging the status quo.
The most powerful way to escape from languishing is to find flow. So, we all know flow as a sense of total absorption in an activity where you lose track of time and place. Sometimes you’re so engrossed you forget where you are.
The problem is that it is really hard for us to find flow in a world where the average person checks [their] email multiple times per day. We are constantly interrupting ourselves and getting out of that flow.
The answer to that is to change habits and try blocking out periods of time for different activities, including not looking at emails. It’s all about setting boundaries.
There’s some recent evidence that shows that we overestimate how responsive other people really expect us to be.
Develop a ‘challenge network’
People should be questioning the way things are done and that might mean challenging some assumptions.
It might mean asking: ‘are the best practices that we adopted in the past obsolete now? Has the world changed in such a way that it no longer makes sense for the future?’
Collaborating with colleagues will get you there faster.
We all know the value of a support network – I think we also need a challenge network, which is a group of people who are thoughtful about criticising you constructively.
Reach out to a couple of people who are good critics and ask them whether they’ve seen you do or say anything that I might want to rethink.
That invitation opens up to a lot of fresh thinking, and sometimes helps you abandon beliefs that are holding you back.
Even if you’re not languishing, you probably know people who are. Understanding it better can help you help them.
By CPA Australia