Beating Boredom in Optometry

Nov 21, 2020

Kia Ora Friend,

Optometry can be repetitive. Most often, you will be repeating the same tests, phrases, and words every twenty minutes, thirty minutes or hour. Repetition can lead to boredom. And according to this passage in Tim Ferris's, The 4-Hour Work Week, "the opposite of happiness is boredom".

So what can we do to maintain happiness in our job and keep enjoying what we do most waking days of our lives?

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Focus on the difference

I came across a great video for this. The tests we do may be repetitive to the point that it is mundane. But what changes is the person sitting in your chair.

Everyone you see is so unique. So, get to know the other person.

Most people are nice and funny. They are sure to paint your day as it progresses so it doesn't stay a monotonous greyscale.

Dealing with negativity

Unfortunately, you cannot win with every patient all the time. One negative experience is going to feel like the world crashing down on your. Negative experiences carry a lot more weight.

Remember, negative experience really stick with us and the positive ones seem to come and go a lot more quickly.

Knowing this, do not let the bad experience affect your over impression of you day or your career as a whole.

Keep learning

Optometry is continually growing and expanding. There are always new things to learn and master.

Why not combine something completely different by studying a complete different field and see where it links to optometry? There are plenty of ways to learn. This is one of them.

Furthermore, you can specialise. Here are some areas of interest to explore:

Specialty contact lenses
Low vision
Binocular/Sports vision
Paedatrics

Craft your abilities and get better. You will become more valuable. You can leverage your value to earn a work-life that you want.

Get into the flow

Flow is a highly desirable state to be in where you are completely engrossed in the task, where time expands, and you inner voice is quietened. You are at your peak mental and physical performance.

The key to getting into the flow state involves selecting tasks that are challenging to your level of skill.

A task too simple and this is boredom. A task too difficult and this leads to anxiety.

Other enemies of flow include distractions, multitasking, and stress. So ensure these do not creep into your work space.

Your health

Poor well being outside of work can affect what happens inside.

We manage health by:

Sleep
Diet
Activity
Meditation/journaling
Relationships

These often get ignored as we focus on what is immediate and urgent first. And after becoming depleted, we binge on unimportant and non-urgent time wasting tasks.

The above list is important but not urgent. If we eat poorly or skip exercise, there is no immediate consequence until later down the track.

Having good health gives us better capacity to deal with stressful tasks that work throws at us.

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Please share this with anyone who might find this interesting. Thanks for checking this out and all the best for the week ahead.

Mā te wā,

Shivan :)

Recent Blog Post

Beating Boredom in Optometry — shivansivakumaran.com

At face value, you turn up, do the same thing, then go home. Optometry or almost any type of work is repetitive by nature. Within the first hour, 30 minute, or even 20 minutes you are repeating the same procedure. Repetition can be a recipe for boredom. And according to the above quote, boredom and indifference can lead to an unhappy career.

Beating boredom in Optometry — shivansivakumaran.com

Kindle Highlight of the Week

The opposite of love is indifference, and the opposite of happiness is boredom.

Tim Ferris, 4-Hour Work Week