I’ve been given a lot to do at work these few days. Today, one of my workmates said apologetically, “I’m sorry that the work has been a bit menial so far.”
I said cheerfully, “Don’t worry. I have a high threshold for boredom.”
I started thinking about this. How exactly would one measure people’s boredom thresholds?
I’ve come up with a crude indicator: My boredom threshold is 0.7 interest events per hour, where an interest event is one of:
- An involving conversation
- Food
- A social email
- A fire drill
- A cute guy/girl walks past
So I can concentrate on a dull task for about 1.4 hours before I start daydreaming.
What’s your boredom threshold? What other interest events can I add to this list?
I think mine is 3. Hehe. That’s 20 minutes. But my interest events are much more simple. You could just poke me — that’s an interest event.
I think you need a multiplier to account for how many times or how long you have done the one boring task. If you do the same boring thing every day for a week, your boredom threshold might be reduced 5 fold.
I would add “reading something which engages your mind” to interesting events….
I think mine is 60-70… I get bored easily. This is probably why I have so much trouble passing uni subjects. I will probably have gotten distracted by something before I finish writing this post and will get back and finish it off an hour later or something…
“I will probably have gotten distracted by something before I finish writing this post and will get back and finish it off an hour later or something…”
You know, I do that a lot with emails. I often start an email, then come back to it like, four hours later ’cause I went to do something else and completely forgot about it…