The Daily Walk: The Slightly Confusing Definition of Fun
Teodora Vasileva
Putting Pieces Together @ Fun Inc | Atlassian Author & Community Leader ??
Hello, daily walkers, and welcome to June. No, I have no idea how time flew so quickly, either.
Not to start on a sour note, but recently, I have felt generally demotivated to do anything but basic, life-required moves. Unfortunately, I am not the world's most precious pearl, so I still do whatever is expected of me, but it lacks any joy or fun.
It turns out I am not the only one.
Andy also loves saying, "If we're not having fun, then what's the point!"
His much-loved phrase made me wonder what "fun" means in our modern age, how important it is, and how it contributes to our overall well-being (when it's obvious we have been kind of NOT having fun lately).
For quite some time, people thought of fun as something related to vacations, beaches, beers, and partying all night. The famous "It's Friday night, so are you having some FUN tonight?" But is this even true? I went on a quest to find out. ??
I am not a solid metric for this research because my definition of fun usually connects with being in quiet, natural surroundings or tasting a new meal somewhere cozy (and deprived of people, of course.)
But fun-ny enough (pardon my dad joke), after asking some friends and co-workers about their definition of fun, the prevailing answers were:
领英推荐
Having fun looks like the new spending peaceful and disconnected time.
But what about work? How is fun positioned in the dynamic, stressful, and disconnected environment in today's workplaces?
I'd tell you, it's not the famous 5 pm slice of Friday office pizza.
Looking from the perspective of my experience, my team and I had the best times when we were aligned on communication, collaboration, and tooling. The process was set up so well that we scheduled team meetings just to see each other and share life news and ecosystem gossip.
Or to celebrate that one colleague who marked all tasks Done on time and with absolute precision, except that they've used the Won't Do definition of Done in Jira. ??
I can drag this topic for ages, but what I see as a connection point is:
As close as we get to improving our companies' internal collaborative processes and efficiency, the more we experience fun and joy in their natural states.
The more we experience fun and joy at work, the more lifted spirits we bring home.
To me, this often translates to: I keep track of and explain all of my work in Jira and Confluence, so my team can ping me for a (fun) coffee chat instead of an emergency work call, which results in a positive day and a good night's sleep.
?? As always, thank you for reading, and let's spark a discussion. What's the definition of fun for you, and how do you apply it in your personal and professional lives?
Constantly trying to work out how to make work (and life) FUN...!!
9 个月“Is this even a thing anymore?” Or “Was it ever a thing to begin with?” After 40yr on earth and working since age 13 I have my conclusion on that debate ??
Chief Operating Officer at Sola
9 个月Snapped this picture while having fun. What was I doing? Reading this post while having a beer in a hotel lounge in San Fransisco. As I snapped this picture the song playing was Mad World by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews. The lyric playing was Children waiting for the day they feel good Happy birthday, happy birthday That's a lot of definitions of fun. I think we need to decide what is FUN for us personally and not be influenced by what others say should be fun. And we should set aside time for ourselves to have fun. For some it's publishing an amazing Confluence page. For others it's clearing their Atlassian Jira tickets. For me, tonight, right here, it's reading your poetic words Teodora Vasileva. Thank you.
Co-founder Accoil. Customer health scores for B2B Saas teams who want to predict and prevent churn in the tools they already use.
9 个月How was I not subscribed to this already? Fixed that - subscribed. What is fun? What a question. Running a business is all about ups and downs. Sales is ups and downs. Marketing is some good, some not-so-good. When I get stuck on feeling like nothing good is happening, I grab a notebook and write about what we as a team have done in the last couple of months. It's always more than I give us credit for... and it helps bring some perspective back into frame. A Tony Robbins thing comes to mind: The Honey I'm Home Energy. He teaches this thing that when you come home from work (or for some of us, you walk through the office down, into the lounge room) you straighten up, smile, and say "Honey, I'm home!" That's the energy you're going to bring from that moment on. So much of the fun I have at work and at home comes down to my attitude. It's not always easy to change from a rough day at work to fun dad mode, but it's worth the effort. And for sure I don't get it right all the time.