By Vicki Salemi

This holiday weekend brings to mind this question: How can you have more fun at work and why is it important?

Ah, hustle culture. It’s so common in our culture to live to work instead of work to live, yet this cultivates burn out, stress and physical and mental health ailments. We often brag about being busy, about doing rather than being still or enjoying life fully.

What if the reverse rings true? If we focus on having more fun at work, keeping things lighter, to enjoy what we do and who we work among.

Bree Groff, transformation expert, advisor to Microsoft, Google, Pfizer and Target and author of “Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously),” said, “Every day we spend at work is one of our precious and finite days on the planet. If we’re not enjoying our days at work, then we’re not enjoying 5/7ths of our lives. There is a lot of research that shows employee engagement drives business outcomes, and almost every workplace article you find will cite it. But I’m far more interested in how engagement drives the ‘I’m enjoying my life’ outcomes.”

According to Groff, fun is defined as being “so visceral and pure and in many ways, open to interpretation.”

Ask yourself when you’re working on a task if it’s fun and you’ll immediately know if it’s a heck yes or hard no. The same applies to mundane responsibilities — you know if it’s enjoyable or not.

Note that having fun at work isn’t limited to participating in social events with your work family. You can find fun in the work itself.

“It’s fun to come up with a brilliant new idea and see your colleagues’ faces excited to try it. It’s fun to perfect a piece of work and feel pride in it. It’s fun to witness the impact you’re making with customers or clients or colleagues,” said Groff. “And it’s fun to both grow and show off your skills. In other words, while I love a good team dinner (or even a ping pong table!), the most sustainable kind of fun at work is where you genuinely enjoy how you spend your time and who you’re spending your time with.”

One way to keep things enjoyable at work is to instill micro rituals. Groff said, “Micro rituals are small, intentional acts that have an outsized impact on your day. They’re little doses of connection and joy and take very little time at all.”

Her advice includes sending a “love bubble” — an impromptu note to a colleague to communicate something specific that you appreciate about them (like being kind in a meeting) — or trying “micro mischief.” Amuse yourself and others by spicing things up in ways such as opening an email with a greeting of “Ahoy” instead of “Hello” and saying, “Happy Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday” instead of only focusing on saying, “Happy Friday.”

Groff said, “Are you alive? It’s a happy day! It helps combat the all-too-prevalent notion that the workweek is to be ‘gotten through’ so the weekend can be enjoyed. We can enjoy our workweeks too!”

Vicki Salemi is a career expert for Monster, an author, a speaker and consultant, TV commentator and former corporate recruiter.

Tribune News Service