Sometimes individuals have jobs that lack challenge and variety, but everyone likes a career that satisfies our requirement for novelty and achievement. In situations like these, one is required to expend additional psychic energy to reap the desired benefits. Without some effort, a dull job will stay dull. The basic solution is quite simple, it involved paying close attention to each step involved in the job, and then asking: Is this step necessary? Who needs it? If it is really necessary, can it be done better, faster, more efficiently? What additional steps could make my contribution more valuable? #RandolphHarris 1 of 10

Our attitude to work usually involves spending a lot of effort trying to cut corners and do as little as possible. However, that is a short-sighted strategy. If one spent the same amount of attention trying to find ways to accomplish more on the job, one would enjoy working more—and probably be more successful at it, too. The pressure to perform can easily generate shame, and the presence of shame makes it harder to adequately perform which just catalyzes more shame. Part of what is required here is to know the particular origins of the pressure to perform. #RandolphHarris 2 of 10

Even some of the most important discoveries come about when scientist, paying attention to a routine process, notices something new and unusual that is required to be explained. Wilhelm C. Roentgen discovered radiation when he noticed that some photographic negatives showed signs of being exposed even in the absence of light; Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin when he noticed that bacterial cultures were less dense on dishes that had not been cleaned and were moldy; Rosalyn Yalow discovered the radioimmunoassay technique after she noticed that diabetics absorbed insulin slower than normal patients, instead of faster, as it had been assumed. #RandolphHarris 3 of 10

In all these cases—and the records of science are full of similar one—a humdrum event is transformed into a major discovery that changes the way we live because someone paid more attention to it than the situation seemed to require. If Archimedes, lowering himself into the bath, had only thought, “Darn, I got the floor wet again, what will the missus say?” humankind might have had to wait another few hundred years to understand the principle of fluid displacement. #RandolphHarris 4 of 10

As Rosalyn Yalow describes her own experience: “Something comes up, and you recognize that it has happened.” Sounds simple, but most of us are usually too distracted to recognize when something happens. As minute changes can result in great discoveries, so small adjustments can turn a routine job, one dreads, into a professional performance one can look forward to with anticipation each morning. #RandolphHarris 5 of 10

First, one must pay attention so as to understand thoroughly what is ha ppening is the only way to do the job; then one is required to entertain alternatives and to experiment with them until a better way is found. When employees are promoted to more challenging positions, it usually is because they followed these steps in their previous jobs. However, even if no one else notices, the worker who uses psychic energy this way will have a more satisfying job. #RandolphHarris 6 of 10

One of the clearest examples I have ever seen was when I did research in a factory where audiovisual equipment was being assembled on a production line. Most of the workers on the line were bored and looked down on their job as something beneath them. Then I met Matthew, who had a completely different take on what he was doing. He actually thought his job was difficult, and that it took a great skill to do it. It turned out he was right. Although he had to do the same job as everyone else, he had trained himself to do it with the economy and the elegance of a master. #RandolphHarris 7 of 10

About four hundred times a day, a movie camera would stop at his station, and Matthew had forty-three seconds to check out whether the sound system met specifications. Over a period of years, experimenting with tools and patterns of motion, he had been able to reduce the average time it took him to check each camera to twenty-eight seconds. He was as proud of this accomplishment as an Olympic athlete would be if, after the same number of years spent preparing, he could break the forty-four second mark in the 400-meter sprint. #RandolphHarris 8 of 10

Matthew did not get a medal for his achievement, and reducing the time to go his job did not improve production, because the line still kept moving at the same old speed. However, he loved the exhilaration of using his skills fully: “It is better than anything else—a whole lot better than watching TV.” And because he sensed that he was getting close to his limit in the present job, he was taking evening courses for a diploma that would open up new options for him in electronic engineering. #RandolphHarris 9 of 10

It will come as no surprise that the same type of approach is required for solving the problem of stress at work, since stress is detrimental to achieving flow. In common usage, the work stress applies both to the tensions we feel, and to its external causes. This ambiguity leads to the erroneous assumption that external stress must be inevitably result in psychic discomfort. However, here again, there is no one-to-one relations between the objective and the subjective; external stress (which to avoid confusion we might call strain) need not lead to negative experiences. It is true that people feel anxious when they perceive the challenges and skills rests on a subjective evaluation that is amenable to change. #RandolphHarris 10 of 10