What are 10 keys to job satisfaction? - Barking up the wrong tree
Eric Barker stashed this in Jobs
Stashed in: #lifehacks, #happiness, Time, Stress, Relationships, @bakadesuyo, Awesome
- Right now most people are unhappy with their jobs. A boring job can give you a heart attack. And those with no job are happier than those with a lousy one. Most people want to leave their jobs because they don't trust their employer. Know what the happiest and unhappiest jobs are and what motivates you.
- Job satisfaction isn't just about your job. Try to make yourself happier: overall happiness causes job satisfaction more than job satisfaction causes overall happiness. (Employers should try to make their employees happier too: happy employees make for rich companies.)
- Job satisfaction is key because work is often a bigger source of happiness than home, ironically.
- Stop thinking so much about money. Income doesn't affect job satisfaction at all and job satisfaction affects income more than you might think. Happiness is only about what you earn when you get paid by the hour. Being paid for performance dramatically increases job satisfaction. More importantly, happiness makes us successful - yes, that's causation, not correlation.
- Happy feelings are associated with "the fulfillment of psychological needs: learning, autonomy, using one's skills, respect, and the ability to count on others in an emergency." Try to structure your job so it fulfills as many of those as possible.
- To reduce job stress get a clear idea of what is expected of you. Overtime isn't worth it.
- On the weekend get away from work and stay active so you're not always thinking about it. People who saw time as money had more difficulty enjoying leisure time.
- Have a good relationship with your boss. A boss you trust is better than a big raise. A little ass-kissing is good for your health. Being friendly with co-workers is vital too.
- Even prostitutes can be very happy with their work. Enjoying our jobs has a great deal to do with how much control we feel we have and whether we're doing things we're good at.
If you cannot see time as money, what should you see time as?
A limited resource for spending on experiences?
Time as money is the default? That's kinda scary.
Time is the most valuable resource you have and, sadly, you never know how much is left.
Well life itself seems to be a continual trade off between time, money, and energy: http://pandawhale.com/convo/1417/enjoy-life-and-all-the-things-you-have-at-the-moment-because-you-cant-have-everything-all-at-once
Of course most working people see time as money, because that's the foundation of work. I work this much time in exchange for that much money.
What's interesting in the U.S. is that we've created institutions (education, cars, and housing) that force people into debt so that we HAVE to spend our time making money.
To not equate time with money is a luxury most Americans cannot afford.
I strongly disagree.
To sum it up in a sentence: "If we really believed time was money we would all spend our time very very very differently."
People VERY rarely spend their time in a way that is economically rational or, for the most part, defensible.
And let's not narrowly look at our friends who are likely to be disproportionately educated, intelligent and ambitious. Let's look at *all* Americans or all of the world's inhabitants and ask if people spend their time in a way that is aligned with their economic best interest. Far too much reality television is being watched for this to be true and that's but one of 7.2 gazilion examples I could give.
People are far too impulsive and emotional to ever live like this. And for many reasons this might be for the best: I do not think most of us would really care to live in a world of perfect rational economic calculations. I would live in fear of the day I had outlived my usefulness because being kind to me might prove too expensive.
11:03 AM Jun 09 2012