Dealing With Repetition In Your Life

Introduction

Someone recently said I must be very bored with certain things that I do, and to be quite honest some things can be boring, there is no way of getting away from that, but I do have ways of dealing with repetitive and even boring tasks.

The Benefits of Repetition

During the industrial revolution and up to this day production lines were introduced which required people to do the same thing over and over.This could become very soul destroying and many of these tasks have been replaced by robots and automation (and yes that results in job losses but that is something for another story), but this introduced economies of scale which resulted in goods becoming cheaper to produce.

When Henry Ford built the Model T , he wanted it to be affordable by every Ford employee, and not just the very rich. This is a benefit of repetition although not perfect.

Jumping away from that , think of Music, your favourite tunes are all based on repetitive motifs and you do not find that sort of repetition boring do you? I know so music seems repetitive and moronic but if you had a piece with zero repetition that went on for more than a minute you would wonder what was happening (cue someone sending me a one hour non repetitive piece).

So while repetition can be boring it is sometimes necessary to deliver a result.

How I Deal With The Boredom Of Repetition

The main way I do this is to think about the results of what I am doing. For some people writing is a chore and a repetitive activity constantly pressing one of twenty six keys plus the odd number and punctuation mark, but at the end you will have a story, a poem or an article that others will want to read and engage with.

On Cats of Vocal, people ask me if I get bored looking for cats. As I have said I am not a pet person, but I know my pictures bring a lot of pleasure to others, and the walks I do to get these pictures keep me reasonably fit. I often meet with the cats’ owners and make new friends and also find out what the cats are actually called, so I become more closely acquainted with the cats and their owners. I know that by doing this there are a number of very positive outcomes and that really makes it worth pursuing.

The same with Alle Tings Hygge although I do use that to spot what actually grabs people’s attention. It seems that people prefer explicit Hygge posters rather than a picture of water or snow, which while they are Hygge are not just Hygge, but it is wonderful knowing when I search these things out that a lot of people actually do find them beneficial.

Always focus on what the outcome of your repetitive task actually is, and it means you have something positive to look forward to.

Also if you get the option listen to music while you do your task and it may seem to be completed more quickly than you thought it would.

Conclusion

I do always worry about repeating myself in my Vocal stories and probably have done several times, but hopefully it does not bother my readers too much. As I have stated, repetition is often required to complete a task and deliver your final goal, be it a story, a destination, a piece of music or something else.

Just look at repetition as part of the process to get where you want to be.