The antidote to paper pushing
Many jobs involve a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy and unfortunate distractions.
For most office jobs, that can be the bulk of what you do.
The problem with this is obvious: this dull, tedious work saps productivity. It takes time, it drains morale and it makes even simple tasks complex.
Organisations only do it this way because it staves off chaos. You think filling out three forms to get a new chair is bad? It’s better than an organisation of ten thousand people, each doing their own thing.
And, hey, that’s life. Even if you work for yourself, you have to fill out tax forms, insurance paperwork, supplier contracts…
On and on it goes.
The other problem with paperwork like this isn’t that it takes time - it’s that it’s too easy.
How can something being too easy be a problem? Surely that’s better than being too hard?
Well, maybe.
But if too much of what you do is easy, it’s not great for you.
Consider the flow state. You’ve probably heard enough about it to know what it is - that state where you’re fully present, immersed in the activity, while you lose yourself as time passes.
It’s damn good for your mental health.
What a shame that the typical workplace doesn’t allow for that. Paperwork takes no skill - only patience. Meetings are either easy exchanges of information or brutal clashes over territory, with no in-between.
Even if some of your job is creative and challenging enough to cultivate flow, how long can you stay in that state until someone interrupts you?
Programmers know what I mean. Unless you’re writing trivial code, you have to be in the flow state. A 30-second interruption can take 30 minutes to recover from.
Between colleagues, customers and meetings - between email, phone calls, pop-ins and social collaboration platforms - distractions are easy to come by.
After a day of pushing papers and fizzled flow, I know what you need:
Gaming.
Not bad gaming, mindless gaming or boring gaming - real, immersive, crank-up-the-flow gaming.
It’s the perfect antidote to a day like that.
So game well and game often.
I can’t help you with the “often” part.
But to game better - whether as a player or GM - be sure to use the resources my subscribers get for free.
For more about what they are, go here: