Learn to Whistle While you Work!

There are many reasons to whistle while you work. If you cultivate a love of work itself and not merely or only the part of your job you like best, or for instance, work you feel you were destined to complete (i.e. the dream career, the magnificent appointment, the finally-I-so-deserve- this-position) you can reap many rewards. I found that this approach to work, tasks, drudgery, name the poison of your day, was additive even exponential in the positive outcomes it can provide.

A strong and POSITIVE work ethic provides an end in and of itself. This was not more apparent than on my maternity leave when some of the tasks set before me during the day were absolutely tedious, border line disgusting and mundane. I am the mother of four, four lovely demanding children three and under. If you cannot appreciate the work involved in this, google insanity. More to the point, you can imagine the tiring (and smelly) and sometimes absurd tasks that mounted throughout my day. Sometimes I would cringe or feel exhausted before starting. It would be easy to prefer reading your children books or cuddling them and singing nursery rhymes, but then we would all be tired, dirty, hungry, sick or have a visit from Children’s Aid.

At one point, with runny noses all, I remembered my mother singing the "Whistle While You Work" song from the Disney Movie, Snow White. It was written by Frank Churchill with lyrics by Larry Morey. Its inspiring to me and it should be to you. When I was a child she would sing this as she completed chores around the house. She would tackle them with gusto. So knee deep in the sort of mind numbing chores this cerebral sort finds tedious, I started singing (off key I might add) Whistle While you Work. The kids liked it and part of me thinks I am paying it forward by teaching them to like work too.

This little jingle began to accompany us while making beds, changing nappies, sheets, umpteenth outfits full of spit and other partially digested food stuffs (think crayons, organic cookies, dirt, hair etc.) and I found it immediately cultivated within me the love of the work itself. This was actually a strong lesson that I could take beyond my home life and into other aspects of my work life and so should you.

Some work cannot be avoided

There are times when you simply must complete a task to get your job done; finish the project and so on. When you realize that you have control over your approach and subjective reaction to the task at hand, there is no reason not to Whistle While You Work. Telling yourself that you are going to enjoy writing the report actually enables you to do just that. And through enjoying the task you formally dreaded you can likely improve a) the objective merit of your work on the file or project; b) finish it faster; and c) learn to whistle.

Assign a Value Proposition to the task

Likely if you are an A-personality or have some drive, you have set out goals. It takes a few seconds of thought to provide the value proposition of the task you have to complete. For instance, completing this will get me closer to finishing the project on time; get me closer to my financial goals; allow me to wake up to a clean kitchen. Sometimes the value proposition, is that it needs to get done, period. Assigning the value proposition may help you also like the task and if not you can always start the song. So now you whistle to like the work and you whistle because the work is also netting you something.

Learn to be a doer.

Nike has it right, JUST DO IT. Setting about on a task that is milling about in the ether of your do list, feels good. Lace up your runners and write that letter, face your co-worker, fold the laundry or whatever it might be and disarm the power procrastination and dread had over you. You can practice starting those ugly chores or least favourite job requirements quickly and with a tune or as I am advocating a positive attitude within your heart. It doesn’t have to be the song I choose, but a mantra or simply empowering the belief that liking your work changes your work product and even your life for the better.

Decide that there is a Lesson in the work

Why must I do this? You might ask shaking your head. It’s amazing how much of your time can be squandered positing the unfairness of your life because you are faced with a certain task, job requirement or the like. If you are going to waste time, waste it finding the right attitude, song or mantra and decide you are going to learn something positive from completing the work. It could be that you will simply learn how to do this task well and efficiently, which can afford itself a pride of workmanship. You may learn something about yourself, that you can do the yucky stuff. If it’s facing a conflict, decide you will learn how to face conflict and that you have it within you to walk towards what you fear. You doing your task with the open mind that there is something positive you can learn will provide you again an exponential effect that begrudging the work cannot.

List and Tick

A good way to like the work is the list and tick phenomena. I love writing out my "to do’s” and then ticking them off as I go. Every tick is a rush, and a few of you know this already. Now what if you get to tick off two notches for every task. One for having completed it and the second for having enjoyed doing it. You can become a dopamine addict to the multi-tick. And in so doing, teach yourself to love even the least favourite aspect of your work. In your fitness objectives that might be to do boy push-ups. Yep it certainly was for me. I used to wimp out because I hated the fatigue. Now I love them, the effort and the push and my attitude towards these push ups. Nothing in my physical body changed, only in my mindset and attitude.

We only live once

Now I am not advocating forgetting about the big stuff or not working towards your grand dreams, it’s just, let’s be real, being able to achieve the goals that are important to you, will include tasks that are not really sexy, that are hard, that you don’t want to do, that you will not be taking a selfie of yourself doing. So the math is that you should do them, get them done. The part of the proposition here is that, we also go this way but once, we live once. Some will use that as justification for a truly hedonist lifestyle, to hell with any drudgery. My argument is that you cannot afford not to like work, even work you formerly begrudged. Otherwise you are robbing yourself of moments in your life you can learn to love. By teaching yourself a positive attitude towards all work, you can instead add so much love and appreciation to a very large part of your employed, domestic and other life. How exponential is that? All of a sudden, it isn’t just the martinis with co-workers you like, but all the parts of your day that got you there. That is true hedonism, cultivating the love of work.

When I think of my mom pushing through with that song, the broom, the vacuum, helping us with our homework, cleaning the camp of mice poop every spring - it was a tackle it no holds bar approach and it also came with a tune. I far prefer that to a scowl. Now I believe, I should whistle while I work, and I hope I have convinced you that so should you.