Making Tedious Work Tolerable

As I near the end of Draft Four (oh joy, oh rapture) I wonder how I slogged through the weeks of mind numbing tedium. Here are the ideas I found helpful.....from the book of Ecclesiastes, of course. To make your tedious tasks tolerable I suggest you...


Fight aimlessness by answering these five questions 

1. What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
2. What do they gain since they toil for the wind?
3. What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun?
4. What do workers gain from their toil?
5. For whom am I toiling, and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?

In Ecclesiastes these five questions are existential, cosmic, and rhetorical and Qoholet’s specific answers are “Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and nobody.” If you don’t have time to be existential, if you've got bills to pay and tasks to accomplish, then write out your long term objectives, outcomes, and immediate goals. What are you going to gain from all your effort? What's the hoped for pay off?


Fight boredom with these seven reminders you’re not the first to feel this way 

1. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! 
2. I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me.
3. My heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun.
4. All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest.
5. When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless.
6. There was no end to his toil…
7. I applied my mind to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night. 

Fight slothfulness by repeating these eight calls to diligence 

1. Fools fold their hands and ruin themselves. 
2. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.
3. Skill will bring success.
4. Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.
5. Through laziness, the rafters sag; because of idle hands, the house leaks.
6. Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.
7. Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well.
8. For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery.

Fight tedium by repeating these thirteen positive affirmations

1. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.
2. A person can do nothing better than to …find satisfaction in their own toil.
3. There is a time to build.
4. There is a time to weep (at the tedium) and a time to laugh (at completed tasks).
5. There is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 
6. Find satisfaction in all [your] toil—this is the gift of God.
7. Enjoy [your] work, because that is [your] lot.
8. God keeps [us] occupied with gladness of heart.
9. It is appropriate for a person to …find satisfaction in their toilsome labor.
10. Be happy in [your] toil—this is a gift of God.
11. Banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body.
12. I commend the enjoyment of life.
13. Joy will accompany [you] in [your] toil all the days of the life God has given [you] under the sun.

Recall the six factors that make work interesting

1. Complexity Labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill. Give yourself little challenges to increase complexity (and interest). I asked myself, "how many pages can I complete in an hour, how many pages in a day or a week?"
2. Competition All toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. We don’t want to covet another person’s job, but we can emulate and try to exceed other's skill.
3. Deadlines Remember your creator …before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them.” Keep the grave in mind; we’re all in a race against the clock, the grim reaper, and the coming days of trouble.
4. Variety Better one handful with tranquility than two handfuls with toil. Take breaks, break up the tedium with leisure…change work locations. I'd go from the living room couch to the kitchen table to my office desk.
5. Ethics: Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. There are lines which should not be crossed and staying within those bounds requires creativity.
6. Completion: The end of a matter is better than its beginning. Dangling finished task in front of you eggs us on. 

I've turned the book of Ecclesiastes into a "how to" book which it definitely is not. Yet, because I've marinated my brain in absurdities, ambiguities, and anomalies for the last seven months I give myself permission to throw hermeneutics out the window.