If someone asked you to name a monotonous task, you could probably come come up with several right off the top of your head. Here’s the first one I thought of: Laundry. Sort your clothes into like colors (this might be easier if you have a basket all ready set aside for all your lights, darks, whites, etc.), load them into the machine after your have the correct laundry soap mixed in, apply your machine settings, and wait. Same thing for drying. Load, settings, wait. Dry again if necessary, but not too long. Put them in yet another basket when they are done, then fold, then distribute. These parts are daunting only to people who have never done them before. To everyone else, they are boring.

Nobody wants to do something boring, no matter how essential the task is. They want variety and excitement. We’re a dopamine obsessed world with everyone constantly seeking after that next rush. Maybe it’s food, maybe it’s love, maybe it’s drugs, video games, movies, maybe it’s success, a collection, upvotes on a social media post. And so on. It can be anything anywhere at any time or any place. And we don’t only have those things on our minds. We have problems, fears, doubts, anxieties, insecurities,

That’s a lot of stuff. And because we are always bound to a time and a place, it’s too much. it’s overwhelming. It’s crushing. Therein lies the the hidden merit of monotony. When one must perform a monotonous task or action, it first focuses the mind. But because that task does not require much thought in the long run, it also allows the mind freedom to think with renewed perspective. It’s much the same principle as taking a break or sleeping on a problem and tackling it later, but it has the added benefit of allowing you to be productive at the same time.

I have used the word “boring,” but it’s not necessary that every monotonous task has to be that. It could be manual labor–wood working, gardening, landscaping, driving, painting, designing. You’re doing the same things over and over, you have time to think. But you are also working towards something, building one step at a time, completing a process. This requires patience and dedication and these are things you learn as you work. If you can accept this, then you can learn to enjoy the process and what is monotonous starts to becomes to become purposeful, something you are skilled in, something you can take pride in doing. Even laundry.