Research Hit: Suppressing Boredom at Work Hurts Future Productivity

Counter-intuitively suppressing boredom seems to increase the negative effects of boredom and attention on following tasks

So are you saying that just being bored is better than trying not to be bored?

That is kind of the take-away from this research by Belinda Casher and colleagues of the University of Notre Dame.

But isn’t this bad in the workplace?

Well, yes, this is why this sort of research is important — unfortunately lots of jobs have boring aspects to them which may include something monotonous and mundane.

Casher et al. investigated the impacts of this in different professions over time by keeping track of attention and productivity. Though it might feel like it is a good idea to suppress boredom i.e. put on a brave face and bash on through it — their data showed that this seemed to extend the negative impacts of boredom!

So what is the antidote then?

Well, there is no antidote — but the paper did note that a more careful balancing of tasks is more effective. So intersperse boring stuff with more interesting stuff. And don’t try to suppress boredom. They didn’t actively investigate…