In an impulsive Facebook post last Friday, I wrote about a friend’s routine practice to spell ‘weekend’ as ‘weakened’ to describe his state after a work week and wondered if it was because he was yet to fall in love with his work.
Going by the number of ‘likes’ the post received, it appeared to have struck a chord with many people. Several people responded to it, including Swaty Verma, Kamesh Bavaratnam, Varun Singhal, Ramani Balakrishnan, Zaheer Pervez, who reiterated the importance of loving our work.
It is an adage that we have grown up with and yet, in this age of TGIF, we see more and more people getting stressed about work! According to a global study of 90,000 employees across 18 countries, only 20 percent of us– 1 out of every five – feel fully engaged at work. In fact, 40 per cent of us are actively disengaged.
Tony Schwartz, author of New York Times bestseller The way we’re working isn’t working and President and CEO of The Energy Project, believes the answer is rooted in “the false assumption that we operate best in the same linear way that our computers do: Continuously, at high speeds, for long periods of time, running multiple programs at the same time.” On the contrary, he says, we are actually most productive when we constantly move between working (expending energy) and intermittently renewing our four sources of energy: Physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. He even offers interesting tips on how to do so.

We all know that we owe it to ourselves to maintain our physical energy levels: So we eat healthy, sleep well, exercise, take short breaks at work, snatch back your lunch break and make the most of your vacations – do whatever it takes to recharge.

But in my experience, our emotional, mental and spiritual energy levels receive a huge boost when we really love what we are doing. So here is what I would suggest: Every day, chisel your work day a bit to sharpen the focus on what’s most important to you. Find time for it; make time for it, rather than giving all your time to the loudest ‘in your face’ claimant. Ask yourself, which part of your work are you really passionate about? Then chase that passion.

Break the ‘things to do’ routine with a ‘things to change’ routine. Step back before you step forward every morning. Before you decide what you will do, ask yourself what you will not do today? For instance, you could decide, “I will not check my BlackBerry messages before brushing my teeth!” (Ok, let’s make that before sipping my morning cup of tea or coffee! )

Oddly, although it is not directly related to your work, allow yourself to get emotional at work. It really helps. Invest in your people and relationships at work. Listen, appreciate, respond. Rather than building a black and white work environment, let the workplace resemble the multifarious hues of life.
Celebrate the fact that you are human, not a machine – and you will find, not only is work invigorating, the weakened spirit would be transformed to a spirited weekend!