Doing the same thing at work every day is very good for you

Every day the same routine. Get up, bike to work, email, write something, meeting, numbers, write, email, go home, cook, bed. And on. On to the next, same day. Hooray hooray yay.

It may seem boring and you will undoubtedly sometimes wonder on that bike on the eternally familiar route to work: is this all? Yes, well, who am I to say what everything is for you, but let's be honest: all of this isn't so bad. Routine at the office is actually nice too. And good for you, so say neuropsychologists.

Because have you ever heard of ego depletion? Me neither – and I'm a psychologist. But it actually means that you get exhausted at work when you have too many choices. That your willpower, your motivation kind of dwindles when you have to do many different things. Should I check emails first, or process orders, or have a meeting, or have a pep talk, or chat by the coffee machine about the weekend, or write first, or work on the budget, or have a meeting with a corporate, or close a sales deal, or… If you have too much choice in what you have to and want to do on a workday, then it can sometimes overwhelm you. Then you get stressed. We then have too little energy left to think clearly and you guessed it: we end up doing nothing useful. If you do the same thing every day, you become quick at it and know exactly what to expect.

So if you're in that routine and every day is the same as the day before, then that's very good for you. You leave more space to think about other things. You waste no energy on unimportant matters like what to wear that day, whether or not to update your agenda, or whether or not to catch up with that colleague. If you have to make fewer choices in a day because that day resembles the previous one, it gives you peace. And that ultimately leads to more productivity and creativity. And less stress. That glass of wine on Friday afternoon is already quite nice. .