Motivation through Play
Have you taken on a task that you didn’t want to do? It’s kind of a silly question. Who hasn’t? For me, I tend to say yes more than I should so I tend to find myself in that situation more than I should but that’s a different problem. Today, I want to share a few strategies I use to get things done, even when the thing isn’t interesting or enjoyable or (from my perspective) valuable.
Strategy 1: Learn Something
When faced with a boring task, I look for ways to learn a new tool or skill while I do it. If I need to create a poster for an event I’m hosting and I’ve heard great things about Canva but haven’t had the chance to use it, here’s my chance. If I need to prototype a idea as part of a task then I’ll consider trying a new programming language to do it. If I sneak little opportunities to learn a tool or technique into my work, I enjoy the work more. There is almost always a way to learn something new while doing a task.
And learning is never wasted. At my first job, I needed to create some tools to help QA automate some tasks. Python was a natural choice and I had only used it once or twice before so here was a great chance to learn and deliver what was needed for QA. A year later, my team needed some help with localization and I already had some python experience so I was able to quickly get a solution up and running in python because I was already comfortable with it. A year after that, I started a new job and my team had a suite of tests built with robotframework which is based on python. Now I was the team expert on python (looking back, I’m puzzled why they chose that framework when no one else had much python experience). Learning is never wasted.
Strategy 2: Make it Fun
I don’t think it’s a secret that work is easier when it’s more fun. The problem is, not everything is fun. Sometimes your boss needs data in a report or you need to provide performance review feedback or you really need to migrate that legacy software project away from Oracle or you need to plan and prioritize your team projects for the year. If the job isn’t fun, you have to find a way to make it fun.
Here’s a few ways I take a boring task and make it more fun:
- Draw a picture or create a meme. At Amazon, they have a process called OP1 (others have written about it). The teams I’ve been part of have never really enjoyed it but to make it more interesting for myself and the teams I worked with, I always put a little picture on our documents of Princess Leia’s hologram with the text “Help me OP1 Kenobi, you’re me only hope”. Star Wars is a great source for memes in the tech industry because most of us are Star Wars nerds. At other companies and other documents I’ve used the Simpsons, Parks and Rec, Futurama. The idea is to get people to laugh and relax and even if no one else sees the document, I laugh and relax and enjoy the work more.
- Code something. Writing documents can be fun but it’s generally not as fun as writing a short script to collect data or automate some task. I’m a software guy and writing software is fun so if I spend an hour or so making something fun, I will be more motivated to do the less fun thing.
- Document the process. This may sound boring to you, but I get a lot of satisfaction from documenting how I do things. The idea is that maybe this will be useful for someone else down the road. How did I create that website or collect that data or how do I think about performance review? For me, doing a meta exercise about the task and documenting what I do makes the task more interesting. Weird, I know.
A little caveat: sometimes you can have too much fun. Make sure you don’t spend all your time having fun and don’t get your job done!
Strategy 3: Disconnect Yourself
In summer 2025, I volunteered to run a silent auction fundraiser. I don’t know what I was thinking. I certainly do not like asking people for donations and I don’t see myself as a fundraiser kind of person. Even the act of copying a template and sending that email to a stranger felt stressful and I did not enjoy it. What I found very helpful was scheduling the email send. I know this sounds weird, but the idea that a whole bunch of emails would go out at 8am instead of 10pm when I was typing them made me feel a lot better. It also made me feel further away from the people I was sending to and therefore it felt less stressful.
I do a similar thing when entering interview feedback. I take notes while doing the interview but if I submit those notes immediately, the interview feels to fresh and I feel too connected to the person I interviewed to be objective. By taking a break (6-8 hours), then I am more disconnected and can enter my notes more objectively. It doesn’t help me get the job done faster, but it does help me get the job done.
It’s a subtle thing but if I can disconnect myself, personally, from the task then it becomes easier to do.
Strategy 4: Break it down
Large tasks can feel daunting and I can sometimes feel paralyzed with the size. Breaking a large task down into a bunch of smaller tasks has helped me in the past. These small tasks may or may not be interesting or fun on their own but if you start completing a few of them, you’ll see yourself making progress and build momentum toward completing the whole task.
When coding, I find unit tests are a great way to achieve this. I write out a test and then write the code to make it pass (like a good TDD practitioner) then I repeat until, next thing I know, there is a full suite of tests and code that works. A screen of green check marks is extremely satisfying.
Bonus: a hand written list on a piece of paper is way more effective than an online checklist (in my opinion). To me, there is almost nothing more satisfying than a hand written list with a bunch of things crossed off.
Summary: Play
Those are a few strategies that help me. If I was going to sum it all up with a word, I would say play. Any task or job can be fun if you can find a way to play while you’re doing it. Some of my fondest memories, from my 20 hour shifts at my part time job at a Florist while I was at university, are telling jokes and laughing with my coworkers.
Play makes difficult and boring tasks fun.