You’re happiest at work when you’re doing mindless tasks

The theory of flow, introduced by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, holds that we’re happiest when we’re engaged in activities that are challenging (though not so challenging as to be frustrating). A new study by Gloria Mark of the University of California-Irvine, in collaboration with researchers at Microsoft Research, finds something a bit different: Workers are happiest when they’re doing tasks that are mindless. An article in the Wall Street Journal quotes Mark: “With rote work, you get a feeling of accomplishment, but you haven’t exerted a lot of mental activity. It gives you a feeling of fulfillment, but there’s not frustration or stress.” The article, by Rachel Emma Silverman, continues: “Although the sample was small — just 32 Microsoft workers in a wide range of job titles — the researchers studied them intensely, collecting more than 1,500 hours of observational data and 91,000 data points about mood and attention. Participants were regularly prompted by pop-up questionnaires on their work screens day asking them to report how engaged and challenged they were by the task they were doing at that moment. Workers may say they want a challenge, but the researchers found that employees were actually less happy doing work they rated as difficult, involving a lot of attention and engagement, such as reading and responding to emails. ‘Focus involves a kind of stress and people aren’t generally happy when they are stressed,’ says Dr. Mark. By contrast, ‘rote work is effortless, so you can get gratification for getting things done.’” Mark’s findings remind me of a passage in a book by Daniel Willingham, a cognitive scientist at the University of Virginia: “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It’s designed to save you from having to think, because the brain is actually not very good at thinking. Thinking is slow and unreliable,” not to mention effortful, Willingham writes in "Why Don’t Students Like School?" He continues: “People are naturally curious, but we are not naturally good thinkers; unless the cognitive conditions are right, we will avoid thinking.” Personally, I totally get the appeal of rote work — if it’s to some extent chosen (and not required by someone else), and if it coexists with more stimulating, challenging work.