Any tips on how to stay engaged at work?

[Felix]

Set your own small goals during the day to make it more challenging/turn it into a game. Try to get into flow. If nothing else, time will pass faster.

[Spartan_Warrior]

Sorry, I only have tips on staying disengaged at work.

Seriously though, my experience with a "highly repetitious" "hours put in" type job (ignoring that that describes pretty much every job) was working in a library as a page. There were other duties as assigned, but mainly I pulled books that were requested and reshelved books that were returned. For each cart, I was supposed to mark how long it took me to complete. I learned very quickly that if I wrote in an extra ten minutes for each cart, I could have an extra half hour every hour or two where I could lay low somewhere in the library and relax/read/write, without anyone wondering what I was doing. This really helped alleviate the monotony and, ironically, made me work much harder at completing the monotonous tasks efficiently (so I'd get a longer break).

I was a teenager then, and I in NO WAY condone such behavior now, in case any future employers are reading this.

But the moral of the story is, find small ways to stay in charge of your time. You're there to do a job; you're also there to sit and occupy a work space for the specified number of hours. That doesn't mean doing the job has to (or even should) require the full specified number of hours, nor does it mean your employer "owns" that time. That time is still yours, and your life is still rolling on. Always remember that.

[Felix]

Games I have been playing:

1. How many times I can change the conversation topic
2. Get coworkers to say an actor's/actress's name
3. Count down from 2000+ days left of work.
4. Doing personal projects on company time.
5. See how many pointless jobs i can do in a week.

Okay, so you know how that works ...

Hmm. Maybe that's not the answer, then. You say that you feel disengaged. Maybe the answer isn't to be found inside your job-time, but outside. If I can take a wild guess, the monotony is spreading. If you have something else on the side that is engaging, it's easier to stand the monotony of the job. Can you work less for less pay, like an 80% position? That should put more balance into everyday life.

[Riggerjack]

You've talked about the things you do to avoid work, at work. I find that the only thing that keeps me engaged is being that much better than everyone else.
this comes with it's own problems. Alienated coworkers. I'm only better by my own standard. That may not be shared by my boss. There is the danger of getting caught up in my own head thinking my "sacrifices " are unrewarded. I have to remind myself this is a game I play for my own purposes. Nobody else cares what I do, so long as I punch the clock in the right times and don't f'up so badly somebody has to fix it.
on that note, everyone in my department came into a desk with years of work stashed in the back of the desks. Perhaps you can begin squirreling away the "training" load for your replacement.

[jacob]

Career change? 5 years is a long time putting time in, out really.

[dot_com_vet]

Can you automate the repetitive parts of your job?

[George the original one]

I second jacob's suggestion. If not a career change, at least an employer change.

[Tyler9000]

I don't handle work ruts very well. They drive me crazy. If I'm not learning something new where I am, I'm looking for something new.

While I've stayed in the same career for about 13 years now, my longest continuous stint at any one employer is about 3 years. It's funny -- most of my friends think I'm the "crazy job changing guy" but most of my coworkers now think of me as the "experienced guy who has a story for everything". The breadth of work helped me both stay fresh and pad my resume.

That said, my next move will hopefully be something very different. That 13 years in the same career is starting to wear thin. ERE is the great opportunity equalizer.

[Beaudacious]

Sometimes (edit: most of) my work can get tedious and repetitive. I handle it by being really choosy on when I apply focus to my work. If it's not critical of my attention, I don't bother. On the off times, I dive into things that interest me that also seem productive to my boss (obviously with some spin). I also socialize a lot to pass the time, which would void my introvert membership... but I'm usually one to cut through the small talk quickly and get into some more challenging topics.

[JohnnyH]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who did "kill" time for 5 years; don't do it... I regret treating those years like a prison sentence to work off.

"4. Doing personal projects on company time."
Pretty much this is the only way I kept my sanity.

Break things up as much as possible. Always keep something ahead to look forward to; vacation, change of weather/season, future project...

[McTrex]

Speaking from the perspective of someone who did "kill" time for 5 years; don't do it... I regret treating those years like a prison sentence to work off

This is how I feel right now. But what to do if this job pays extraordinarily well and switching to another job would mean a ~40% reduction in salary at least while probably being more demanding?

[Scott 2]

Try to fix the current job, by aggressively negotiating your responsibilities. If you can't, move on. Money won't buy back the wasted years of your life. If the job is bad enough, it might even cause health problems that cost you additional years.

My current career goal is to have a job I can't bring myself to leave, when I reach FI in a few years. I am closer to that goal than I've ever been, and it only gets easier as the money accumulates.

Outside of work, I envision my "then what?" following FI, and have integrated as much of that as possible into my life today.

[thebbqguy]

I guess it may depend on the industry you are in; whether it's highly specialized or relatively general.

At my employer it is fairly easy to switch jobs every 18-24 months. I have held 9 positions in 17 years. That has helped me stay engaged, keep my skills fairly current, and network with a large portion of the management team. I have also taken the opportunity to relocate 4 times to different states.

My 2 friends who have only held 3 or 4 positions during the same time frame hate their jobs and are also paid much less as a rule. They have also never relocated.

They made their choices and I made mine. I think whether they are right or I was right is a matter of point of view. They envy me for my mobility and willingness to try new things. I admire the fact that they get to live in a community they highly desire living in. I used to live there too, but the opportunities for me have always been elsewhere. Getting back there is next impossible because about 20k other employees in my company want to get back there too.

So my thought is that work is what I make of it. I can choose a certain amount of what happens by changing the scenery so to speak and if I can't (or won't) do that successfully then there is always the option to find another job (which I have no intention of doing).

[leeholsen]

well, you can do what i do; and i am a perogrammer.

i have figured out my supervisor and department head have no idea how to estimate my tasks and projects and they really cant for the entire dept(its really pathetic), so i grossly overestimate my time to them and try to do it as fast as possible and deliver it when needed.

the rest of my time, i spend on what i want to work on; i'm learning mobile phone programming now; might never use it; but i know its going to be the hottest programming career for some time; so if i need it; i got it and i like figuring programming stuff out.

[JohnnyH]

This is how I feel right now. But what to do if this job pays extraordinarily well and switching to another job would mean a ~40% reduction in salary at least while probably being more demanding?

I agree with what Scott 2 said, try to fix the existing job.

Once I hit FI, I decided I'd ask (basically ultimatum) for telecommute... The result? They agreed right away without much of a fight. I regret not doing it years ago.

[BeyondtheWrap]

Games I have been playing:

1. How many times I can change the conversation topic
2. Get coworkers to say an actor's/actress's name
3. Count down from 2000+ days left of work.
4. Doing personal projects on company time.
5. See how many pointless jobs i can do in a week.

I too come up with games to make my job more interesting. I'm a retail cashier, so here is my version:

1. When checking $50 or $100-bills with a counterfeit pen, draw a mustache on the face.
2. Memorize bar codes for those hard-to-scan items.
3. Whenever someone's change comes out to exactly $13.00, say, "You get to keep $13."*
4. Whenever someone's change comes out to exactly $67.00, say, "Here's your take for the day! $67!"*
5. When the total comes out to $19.xx, say, "Good year."
6. Try to go as long as possible without opening your rolls of coins.
7. Try to get as close as possible to the bottom of the roll of receipt paper before changing it.

* 3 and 4 are both lines from Good Burger, my favorite movie.