Research: How to Power Through Boring Tasks
Ever found yourself stuck in a cycle of mundane tasks, struggling to maintain focus? Discover the science behind powering through boredom and learn how to transform tedious tasks into productive endeavors.
For boring tasks, it can be more effective to pair these activities with other tasks that demand more attention
The mind seeks to be engaged
- We experience boredom when doing tasks that require less attention than we have available, and often quit those tasks prematurely
- If there is a second activity in which we can immerse ourselves concurrently with the low-attention task it can occupy that excess attention, reducing boredom and thus increasing persistence
Tangential Immersion Decreases Boredom and Increases Persistence
People can really only pay attention to so much at one time
- Tangential immersion only increases persistence if the two tasks together occupy most of – but not more than – one’s total attentional capacity
- In a supplemental study, we compared tangential immersion to progress monitoring by asking participants to do a simple typing task for as long as they could and found that listening to an immersive audiobook increased persistence even more
Putting Tangential Immersion to Work
Tangential immersion offers a simple yet effective strategy that can empower anyone to stick with the work they know they should be doing, boosting personal productivity, organizational success, and well-being on a societal level
- For any company concerned with engaging and retaining customers, our studies highlight the importance of bundling activities together such that the product requires enough (but not too much) of users’ attention
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