Is “Fun at Work” an Oxymoron?
As a business owner, are you still enjoying your business? Is it still fun, at least sometimes?
You probably have to do things that aren’t really fun in the service of your firm. (For me that’s anything administrative.) Ideally, though, the work you enjoy takes more time than other tasks.
January 31 is National Fun At Work Day, and if you’ve lost some of the fun of being a business owner, there are ways to bring it back. (And if you haven’t lost some of your sense of fun, you can even have more!
Fun at work can help business owners avoid burnout
If you are stressed and miserable all the time, you’re heading for burnout. Not only that, but if you have employees, they’re going to be stressed and miserable too. You might end up with a lot more employee turnover if you’re not making sure that you are managing your stress.
The occasional pizza party or team-building event or birthday celebration is fine, but not nearly enough. (Also, if you do hold these activities, do them during the workday. Don’t make your employees and yourself sacrifice time with loved ones and other activities to gather for happy hour or anything else after work.)
More importantly, doing more of the work you enjoy and less of what you don’t keeps you motivated and helps you stress less. If you have a team, you do need to manage, but that doesn’t mean micromanage.
Train your employees fully on what you’ll be delegating to them. Make sure they understand the expectations for the role, any timelines they need to be aware of, etc. Also train them on the systems you use. You will probably need to combine whatever training the software company has for its clients as well as company-specific training for the way your company uses it.
Then delegate. Having intermediate milestones before big deadlines can help you both assess if they’re on track, and if not, what to prioritize or whether extra resources are needed. But let them get on with the job and don’t be tempted to step in just because you can do it faster.
If you’re a solopreneur, there are many administrative functions that can be automated. You might need to spend a little time setting them up and making sure you know how to use them effectively.
Either way, this should free you up for the enjoyable parts of your job AND time to spend with loved ones and fun activities you enjoy outside your business.
Fun at work involves focus
When you’re always answering questions or emails, when you can’t get your own work done because somebody needs something or the phone rang or you got a random phone notification, you feel like you’re being pulled in all directions.
You don’t feel like you have time to see a problem through because another one has popped up, and in the back of your mind you’re thinking about all the things you haven’t been able to get done.
That’s a main factor in why you’re feeling so stressed (and also heading down the road to burnout.) Your brain likes things to be finished – though that doesn’t always mean that the thing is actually finished, or finished by you. When you have all those unfinished strands of thought hanging around, your brain is unhappy and won’t let go of those thoughts until they’re resolved somehow.
If your brain isn’t enjoying the work, nobody’s enjoying the work.
There are simple fixes to many of these issues, fortunately. Ultimately, enjoying work comes down to the ability to focus. When you allow too many distractions and interruptions to your focus, you get less done and then feel bad about it.
Focus also helps you stay in the present moment. You’re not consciously ruminating about something that happened yesterday or what you’re worried could happen tomorrow. You’re “in the now” and when you’re doing the things you like to do, you get greater pleasure out of them.
Fun at work requires some structure
Many of us think of fun as something that happens spontaneously, so you might think of a fun day at work as a day when you just do whatever you feel like doing. Every once in a while, that’s OK.
But on an ongoing basis, having some structure helps you have more fun, because it helps you open up more time for those enjoyable things.
For a very basic example, when it’s time for me to create content, I look at my content calendar to see what the topic is for the week. Then I open up a Google doc, save it with a title that relates to the theme, and move it to the correct folder. Then I start work.
I generally create the calendar a quarter at a time. Right now I have all the topics for 1Q25 spelled out. Sometimes I don’t want to write about the topic in the content calendar when I get to that week, so I write about something else.
So the structure has some flexibility to it, but at the same time I don’t have to worry about writer’s block since I always have something to fall back on. I know which folder all the docs are kept in, so I can look back if I need to.
I talked to someone who doesn’t like to have any routine in the day, and while I understand where she's coming from, she’s draining her productivity tank way too fast. Every decision you make drains your ability to make good decisions, no matter how trivial the decision might be.
If I didn’t have my writing routine down, every time I sat down to create content I’d have to make a whole bunch of small decisions (and one big one.) Small decisions:
When will I write the content?
Which software will I use to write the content?
What will I call it?
Where do I save it? Do I need to create a new folder?
The big decision is what to write about. If you don’t have a content calendar to follow:
What if I have a problem staring at a blank page (writer’s block)?
Is there a topic I want to write about right now?
If not, is there something I can hook my content to, like National Have Fun at Work Day?
By automating so much of this and making it routine, I don’t have to waste brainspace on relatively trivial things and can dive right on into the subject.
Having routines and habits for part of the day allows you to have some free, unscheduled time during other times. Sometimes I have to leave calendar space unblocked for my inner rebel, so I can get stuff done and still enjoy my day.
Recap (tl;dr)
Fun at work helps you stay sane, manage stress, avoid burnout, and keep employees. The fun doesn’t have to be a bunch of parties or events, but time spent doing what you enjoy.
If you’re feeling overworked and can’t find the time to focus, book a time here for a free consultation.
Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash.