Finding the Fun: How to Navigate Your Journey's Boring But Necessary Bits

Now, what is it that you enjoy about the job you’re doing? What drew you to this job in the first place? Is there a way to inject some of that joy into your current task? What about the current step you’re doing? Is there anything interesting about it? Is there anything that could be interesting about it? 

As a writer, one of the things I enjoy is playing with words. It’s not always easy with the things I write, but if you know where to look, there are still ways to get a little silly. One of my favorite articles I ever wrote, a factual article about saving energy through appliance maintenance, opened with the line, “The Kansas City area is facing a threat of vampires!” The client published that on their website, and I’m very proud of it.

Or, did you know that it’s possible just to invent your own words? Not only can nobody stop you, if your word is interesting and useful enough, other people might start using it too!

With the permission (nay, encouragement!) of an editor at Merriam-Webster, I did this a number of years ago. I coined the word “mobilely” to refer to things now done on your phone from anywhere, that once had to be done from a specific location, such as on your computer, in a store, etc.

I spent years inserting “mobilely” into as many articles, for as many clients, as I possibly could, in the hope that it would gain enough widespread usage to wind up in the dictionary. It never did catch on, and most of my editors actually removed it from the final copy, but still, it was something I always looked forward to.

(In fact, keen observers, might even notice that I did something similar in the opening paragraph of this very article. Drudgerous. New adjective form of drudgery. Tell your friends.)

 I’ll also put in song lyrics, pop culture references, or just cool words I happen to like. (I once opted to forgo putting the word “balderdash” into an article I was writing, and I have regretted it ever since.) These are little, seemingly insignificant things, and 95% of them, nobody is ever going to notice them but me. But these little bits can mean the difference between a boring article that I struggle to find motivation for and an amusing game I look forward to playing.

This can be done with just about anything that you otherwise might struggle to get done. Doing housework? Have a dance party with your broom, mop, or vacuum. Data entry? Look for interesting or unusual names of people, streets, towns, etc. Craft a story about them in your mind.

On a really long drive somewhere—or have a regular commute in heavy traffic every day? Look for cool street signs that could be character names. This works particularly well if you can find a series of several street names in a row that work well together. I have a whole melodrama in my head from many years ago, when I had to commute back and forth from the Valley to Venice every day, starring the coquettish heroine, Rose Marine Ashland, the noble hero, Beethoven Walgrove Lincoln, and the dastardly villain, Wilshire Montana.

Also, in almost anything you’re doing, music helps enormously. Or podcasts or audiobooks, or whatever you feel like listening to. I like old-time radio dramas. For a couple of months this summer, most of my dishes were getting done to episodes of the 1945 serial “Superman Vs. The Atom Man.”

In the end, there’s no such thing as a perfect job. Even if you are lucky enough to get paid to do what you love, there will still be days when it’s the last thing in the world you want to do. Background on the set of Grey’s Anatomy may have been a party for a day, but I’m confident that even that would have become a chore if I’d kept doing it. 95% of background work is sitting around doing nothing while you wait for instructions, and that’s not something I would choose as a career. And even custom omelets would get tiresome after a while.

Despite the drawbacks, despite the fact that it’s still not quite where I want to be, I am grateful every day that I’m able to make my living as a writer, and when it comes down to it, there’s no other career I’d rather have. Still, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing else I’d rather be doing — especially if it’s a choice between working on my latest story or play, or helping residents of Midland, Michigan learn how to prep their home for sale on a budget.

And I know I’m not the only one. Everyone goes through this sometimes. In fact, this is a good thing. That dissatisfaction with where we are now is what pushes us towards our goals for the future. But it can also be frustrating. No matter where you are in life and what you’re striving for, there will always be things you wish you didn’t have to do and days when you’d rather be doing almost anything than the task at hand.

But if you can find that element of fun, it can get you through those parts you don’t necessarily like and help you focus on the parts you do—while not losing sight of the thing that drew you to this in the first place. (As far as your job is concerned, anyway. For housework tasks, the overarching purpose doesn’t work as well. Those just need to be done. I’m sorry.)



The element of fun is different for every person and for every task, but it’s always there if you know how to look for it. I can’t guarantee that it will make every task you undertake become a piece of cake. There will still be challenges. There always are. But with a little luck and a little ingenuity, that spoonful of sugar can help the medicine to go down, if not in a most delightful way, then at least a palatable one.