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RSS FeedMarch 26, 2008
Re: The do-nothing effect
It occurred to me recently that on the days I spend most of my work day doing nothing (or at least nothing intellectually stimulating), I spend my night/weekend doing the same. I acclimate to doing nothing and that’s a hard cycle to break. Sure, I may force my way through my RSS feeds, I may “read” a few of the more interesting-looking articles, and I may even blog about one of them, but my apathetic attitude is clearly reflected in each activity.
Your job, where you likely spend the largest amount of your awake day, should be a place that encourages you to try new things. Your employer should be encouraging you to look at a problem in a new way, encouraging you to read about the new “it” thing in your field, encouraging you to try something new, and they should be rewarding those people who help themselves (and by extension, the company) this way.
If your employer isn’t encouraging you to grow intellectually, they’re encouraging you to stagnate, inside and outside of the office. Original post →
It’s your own responsibility to try new things, to look at problems in a new way. It’s not your employers’ task to encourage that. Encouragement from others is important and helps one to take things further, but in the end, nobody is going to come to help you out when you spend the weekend in your feed reader. It’s all up to you to get up and do something.
I disagree with you.. If you’re not encouraged from within your workplace to try something new, you won’t bother.. Professional stimulation, and an interest in what you’re doing, is very important into growing to new things..
March 26th, 2008 at 12:30 ∞I must agree with Jan, but I can also feel what Wolfr is saying. In a perfect world you’re self encouraged enough to try new things, but it helps when your boss says “hey you could try this or that”. Some people just need someone that takes them to the next level, while others do that on their own.
March 26th, 2008 at 8:40 ∞IMHO encouragement from others is definitely a factor in this equation. If nobody ever encourages you to try new things. I think you will find it very hard to try new things. After all: you are a human being, ergo, you are a social creature.
So, encouragement? Definitely needed.
However, it’s also handy to possess a healthy amount of curiosity and just enough disregard for other people’s opinions.
March 26th, 2008 at 3:03 ∞Not saying encouragement is not needed; it just isn’t the defining factor at all (the original post makes it sounds like it is).
Anyhow, interesting topic.
March 26th, 2008 at 6:00 ∞