Comments on: Work and Play, Are They Really Different?

By: mike walzman

mike walzman — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:28:50 +0000

I can definitely feel that way sometimes. It starts out you do it just because you enjoy it. So, you do it when you want and it feel good, but what happens is when you try to live off of that activity, it’s no longer I get to, but it becomes I have to. To get out of this “I have to” mode I get into gratitude. In the morning I will list in my mind all the things I am grateful for, my relationships, material possessions etc. This gets my mind to shift from negative to positive. Of course we all have those days where it just feels like work and I’ve learned it’s ok to have those days, I can’t be so hard on myself.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:46:29 +0000

Jay,

Thanks for the book tip. I’ll check it out. Sounds like I’d enjoy it.

By: Jay Neely - Boston Entrepreneur & Web Strategist

Jay Neely - Boston Entrepreneur & Web Strategist — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:25:52 +0000

Hi Steve,

I recently picked up “The Red Rubber Ball at Work” by Kevin Carroll, a book that explores this change between spending our time at play to spending our time at work, and how some people have established a clear difference between the two, to their detriment, while others have used the same foundational play from their childhood to enhance and make fun their lives at work. I’ll excerpt from the intro:

“I’ve heard it said that we don’t outgrow play, we only change what we call it. If playing capture the flag requires problem solving–’How can I outwit my opponent?’–then why don’t we view problem solving on the job–’How do I outsell my competition?’–as a form of play?”

The book primarily consists of the stories of those who have taken the skills they developed by playing and made their jobs revolve around those skills (and more of that playing).

From this post, thought you might be interested.