This is an excerpt from my kindle book, The Pajama Tycoon
Have you heard the phrase ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’?
It may sound like something out of an Enid Blyton book, but it’s true that working all day and not having any fun can really make us feel tired and grumpy, forgetting how to relax, switch off and do the things we love.
While I don’t know who Jack is, Andrew certainly gets fed up if there’s too many things to do on the task list, and I don’t have time to walk the dog, go ballroom dancing or simply sit back and take a break with my family.
The truth is, not many of us leap out of bed every single morning full of enthusiasm, with butterflies in our stomach and the heady thrill of anticipation bubbling over, at the thought of a new week at work.
While we will always associate the weekend with pleasure, relaxation, catching up with friends and doing the things we love, sometimes the week following can seem like a tax on our lives designed specifically to pay for those two short days.
When you think about it, this is a poor equation.
How many other areas of our life would we spend in paying this much of a price, for such a short reward?
It would be like forking out a million dollars for a holiday which lasts for three days, or spending our life savings on a car which we only got to use once a year.
So, given that most of us spend our entire working week longing for the weekend to come around again, what can we do to make things easier?
Apart from the obvious solutions, such as giving it all up, winning the lottery, or waiting for a rich benefactor to come along and give us enough money for a life of luxury, where every day is a weekend, how do we change this uneven equation?
I have an idea.
Imagine if, instead of waiting for Friday night to come along each week, to get away from the drudge of work, we actually made our work interesting and rewarding enough to balance out the equation in our favour?
Instead of dreading Monday mornings, imagine if we actually looked forward to them with the same anticipation as we do the weekend – how would that change our lives?
This isn’t just fancy – it’s possible. Here’s how.
When we work for ourselves, we are masters of our own destiny.
We get to choose what projects we do, when we do them, and how we do them. This means that we have the full potential to work in a way which inspires, enthuses and motivates us.
However, most of us don’t do this.
Instead, we select tasks based upon how much revenue they will bring, and how much benefit. The trick to being happy at work is to bring in other factors for evaluating success and effectiveness in our work.
How happy will it make us?
Will it satisfy our need for creativity?
Will we get the chance to learn something new?
Will we get rewarded for it?
By treating work as a holistic element of our lives, we get to bring in other important factors for making us happy, rather than just concentrating on generating cash.
It may sound tough, but it isn’t. If we love writing, we should write more. If we love technical development, we should focus upon that.
If we need a break between twelve and two each day to be happy, we should get up earlier and make it possible.
If we crave company, we should rent an office space with people we enjoy working with.
If we hate admin, we should outsource it, finding other ways of generating cash to cover the cost.
By treating work in a holistic way, and looking at how we can grow to love it, every week can be seven days of Sundays. It’s simply a question of knowing what we love, and making it happen.
Action takeaway:
Write down what aspects of your business you love and hate doing.
Concentrate on the tasks you love and get others via outsourcing to complete the ones you hate.
This is an excerpt from –
The Pajama Tycoon
On Amazon
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Doing the same old thing everyday does get boring when working from home. I think getting into a routine and sticking to it helps me out a lot. Sometimes I would rather just stay in my pj’s all day and work but I noticed when I did that it almost makes me in a lazy mood and not wanting to work. So when I get up and start the day off right I tend to get a lot more work done.
Tanya,
Your first sentance says ‘Doing the same old thing everyday does get boring when working from home.’.
Your second says “I think getting into a routine and sticking to it helps me out a lot.”
Is a routine, doing the same old thing?
Andrew
Thanks Andrew for sharing this part of your great book, “The Pajama Tycoon.”
You know it does not do much good working for yourself if you are not having fun. I am having fun and it is your advice that has help me have the fun with my work. (Thanks for taking care of my technical stuff for me) That is top on my list of ‘lot so fun’. You keep my fun level up and my stress level down by taking care of my technical end.
The most part I enjoy is the writing and learning more about writing and the great people I have met alone the way.
Thanks again for sharing and keeping my stress level DOWN 🙂
Debbie
Debbie
Thank YOU for those kind words.
I do if believe people exploit their strengths they have a much better chance of being successful.
Why try and improve something you hate doing?
Andrew
Andrew, do you have any advice for putting this idea into practice for those of us with a regular 9-5 job? Wouldn’t it be great to go to our regular work with a spring in our step?
Obviuosly there are many restrictions when in a regular 9-5.
‘Find a job you love’ – part of a famous quote.
‘Work for a company that allows you to use your strengths’.
Become a boss and delegate!
Andrew
I love the idea of working from home. As to how to inject fun into my work, I would normally take a break every hour by doing something I like for a few minutes before I continue on.
Or if I am dead tired, I would go to bed and take an hour worth of cat nap. How cool is that?
Try that when working outside. If your boss don’t fire you or give you disciplinary actions, then you’re lucky.. 🙂
Fran,
You have just shared why working from home and yourself is…priceless!
Andrew
This such an important subject,yet so seldom considered. Recently I have realized I have been working too much myself. Very timely post for me. Thanx
What action will you be taking to reduce the number of hours you are working?
Andrew
I use to play games during work when I feel bored or watch some funny things on the internet just a little break.
Marnie
What games did you play at work?
Andrew
Hi Andrew,
Its an appreciable post, Sometime our work not gives desire output as we expected, may be it depends upon your devotion(or little mistake) towards the work or may be sometime destiny decides and after that…Will we get rewarded for it?
Of-course you shall get rewarded, actually i analyzed few lines of Andrew in reverse order, just starting with last one “Will we get rewarded for it?” and you may got a win win strategies.
Thanks for sharing.
Another fascinating post thanks Andrew. It’s important to enjoy our work. It’s not right to wish the week away so that the weekend may be enjoyed. It’s a question of balance. I must say that now I’m on my learning curve in Internet Marketing I look forward to my working week. There are so many new aspects of this new job that it is interesting at every level. I’m learning new elements about IM all the time. It’s like learning a language. The beauty of it all though is that I can please myself when I allocate particular blocks of time to it. That’s not possible in a 9am-5pm job. Regarding the points you make re loving and hating parts of the job, I must say that as it is all new to me I enjoy each aspect in a different way. So it is all positive just now but in time maybe I’ll need to outsource eg some blog posting so that I may concentrate on other sections. Essentially – it’s all good fun anyway!
Laurie
Sounds like you are still in the ‘honeymoon’ period. Soon you will get ‘sick’ of some aspects and will want to outsource!
Andrew
Thanks Andrew, I always used to play some Multiplayer games once in a while during my internet marketing career. Really a stress buster
Gautham
I agree – a small break can really help.
Andrew
Good post Andrew:) Whenever I get bored or my eyeballs start rolling out of my head after long hours of looking at the blue screen, I simply walk to my garden and enjoy the greens or take 10-15 mins off and play a game on my mobile. It lifts off all the stress and I am rejuvenated!
Manishak
That’s all it takes…15 mins away from the PC.
Andrew
I’m doing the work at home thing and it’s pretty hard. First of all because when I finish work I’m extremely tired, second of all because it’s hard to keep focus all that time, I have the tendency to read a newspaper, play something on miniclip, things like this. But I’m getting used to it…so I think that in a couple of months it will be better and I’ll actually enjoy it 😀
Andrei
It does take time to be disciplined. Sometimes when distracted…remind youself what you could be doing, work wise…it maky get you back on track.
Andrew
Yes I’m sure you’re right Andrew. I’ll find out about the outsourcing as I progress with your course (to which I have just signed up). I’m looking forward to structuring my blog and making any improvements you think might be necessary.
Laurie
Yes I saw you had signed up – welcome…I hope it makes a huge difference.
Time (and action) will tell!
Andrew
This such an important subject,yet so seldom considered. Recently I have realized I have been working too much myself. Very timely post for me. Thanx
If we learn to love and enjoy or work, then there will no word called boring in our entire carrier. It about the attitude that make us enjoy or get bored around.