26. June Q&A: Maintaining Work Motivation and Double Majoring in College
Episode 26
It’s another monthly Q&A episode where I answer questions submitted by listeners. (That’s YOU!)
This month I answer two questions. The first is from a working professional asking for tips to stay motivated during slower periods in the office. (Yep - the summer slump happens at work, too.)
The second question is from a college student asking if he should pursue a double major. As someone who double-majored herself, I have an interesting take on the subject.
Question 1 starts at 1:04
Question 2 starts at 11:00
🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned:
→ Episode 08 Motivation vs. Discipline: Which One Matters More?
→ Episode 19 What to Do When Your Job is Too Hard
✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:
→ Daily Timeblock Planner (pdf)
→ Weekly Planner (pdf)
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)
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26 June Q&A Maintaining Work Motivation and Double Majoring in College
[00:00:00] Hello there. This is episode 26 of the Learn and Work Smarter podcast.
And it is mid-June, which means that it is time for our monthly Q and A episode. If you are new to the podcast, once a month I record a Q and A episode where I answer your questions.
To submit questions you can head to learnandworksmarter.com and there is a form right there on the homepage.
All submissions are anonymous. I do not read your name, but I will answer your question here on a future Q and A episode.
Today I am answering two questions. One is from a working professional and one is from a student.
[00:01:00]
I'm going to jump right in with our first question and I am going to read it.
The listener writes:
I've listened to your episode about what to do if you don't like your job, because I thought that was maybe my problem, but I'm thinking my issue has more to do with motivation over the summer. Many of my colleagues take time off over the summer and I find myself regularly losing motivation for work in June, July and August. Do you have any tips to stay motivated?
All right. Excellent question.
First things first, you are absolutely not alone.
June, July and August are warmer months for many of us, obviously, you know, depending where you live, but I'm assuming you live in a place where it is getting warmer this time of year, just based on your question. And so it's normal for our energy and our motivation to, to flow, to rise, to fall and to follow sort of a cyclical nature [00:02:00] of the seasons.
Think about it.
Everything else in life is seasonal. So why would our energy for work be anything different? School is seasonal, agriculture is seasonal, certain sports activities are seasonal, allergies are seasonal - heck everything is seasonal.
So I think it's time we probably start to work or think about work the same way.
Now, that's not to say that if you have a full-time job, that's not technically seasonal like a lifeguard or a ski instructor, you know, that you should just quit your job for a season.
Not at all. But we should recognize that our energy and our motivation towards our work usually follows a predictable pattern when the weather changes.
So I wanted to start with letting you know that you are not alone and I feel it too.
Now, the second thing I want to talk about is the fact that I think it is okay to slow down sometimes, particularly in what we would consider a slower season.
I'm using air quotes if you're watching this on the [00:03:00] YouTube channel.
There is nothing in this world that is go, go, go without a period of slower pace or rest, right? And I think that we become better, we become more productive and we become healthier employees if we also operate at a slower pace sometimes.
Now, depending on your job, it could make sense for you to back away from all the noisy and non-urgent tasks over the summer. If that's the culture in your office.
Another solution could be to consider taking more predictable periods of slower pace work throughout the years that you don't feel the need to slow down significantly, right, once a year, once a season.
It's like running. If you pause every few miles to walk for a few minutes, you can go longer overall. Right. If you sprint nonstop without a break, you're going to crash and burn sooner than you would otherwise. You see what I'm saying?
So without knowing the specifics of your job, because [00:04:00] that's not what you included in the, um, question, although I am guessing it's an office job because of your colleagues leaving the office. Right. I can't give you concrete evidence about which approach to take. But if possible, I do want you to take some kind of approach.
You either slow down in some kind of way for a few weeks until you get your energy back, or you can begin to incorporate some more like intentional slowdown periods throughout the year so that your endurance throughout the year as longer overall.
Now, regardless of which approach you take, we have to think, how do we do this?
How do we incorporate some intentional seasonality into our jobs, whether you're doing that over, you know, a few weeks or months in the summer, or if you're doing it more quarterly, right?
I have a few ideas for you.
First decide when it is that you're going to slow down. Look at a calendar and identify when you're going to do this and for how long. All right.
Now looking at your calendar means, [00:05:00] you know, you have to work around sort of corporate events or, you know, intense periods in your job that might happen quarterly. Maybe you have a launch or a big company initiative. Well, okay. Well look at the calendar. Identify when those periods are. They're usually not over the summer.
Right. And work around them.
Next do some brainstorming about what tasks you're responsible for. And what aspects of your job you're responsible for that you absolutely cannot back away from. You can't ignore these totally. And you need to come up with a plan for how you're going to meet those work responsibilities during your slow down, obviously, unless you're taking a full-out vacation, right?
Maybe you can postpone them for a week or two if possible.
Uh, maybe you can complete some work ahead of time so that you don't have to think about them until you pick back up, right?
Um, or the third approach. I feel like this one might be more reasonable if I'm sensing the nature of your question right, and this is to identify all of the [00:06:00] non-urgent things that you do and reduce them so that you're only working on your important work during your period of, you know, slower paced energy.
See, the reason I'm suggesting this might be the best approach for you is cause you didn't ask me how to take a break from your work.
You asked how to increase motivation to do your work during periods of a general like lull in the office energy and one way to do this is to work on the things that are essential and that clearly move the needle.
So instead of postponing the important things you, you delegate, right? Or you slow your pace on the work, the work like clutter tasks. And just have laser focus on just the things that you need to do.
This will have a direct impact on motivation because you're going into work for, let's say, you know, essentially, I don't know, three weeks and you have total clarity on what you're doing.
No distractions from the other tasks. No busy work, no sort of like that [00:07:00] admin and email and all those other things you've identified them ahead of time as sort of like work clutter urgent, but not super important. And you're saying to yourself, I'll get to them. I've identified them. I've put them on a list. I know what they are and I will get to them.
Right? We're not just abandoning them. You'll get fired from your job. But for this period of just say, let's say two weeks, you're saying I am going to focus laser focus on just the things that move the needle. And when we have total clarity, I've talked about this before in an episode I have it's like motivation versus discipline. I talk about when we have total clarity on something, our motivation for that thing often goes up.
So if you've identified the work tasks or perhaps, maybe there's just one that is super important for your job and that is the only thing you're going to work on for one to two weeks, that's essentially slowing down, right?
It's it's saying no to all of the superfluous and extra sort of nag-y tasks, but your motivation will also go up [00:08:00] and that's getting at the nature of your question. Cause again, you didn't ask me, how do I take a vacation? How do I stop work completely? You're like, how do I keep going? When I don't really want to.
All right.
And who knows? Maybe. At the end of this little break, you might realize that a lot of those annoying tasks that you sort of, you know, put aside temporarily might actually be unnecessary or overinflated to begin with.
And maybe you can be more discriminate when you bring them back to your plate and say, do I really need to do this? So let's say for example, that during your intentional slowdown, maybe you made a promise to yourself to only check your email, like once a day at work, instead of all day long. And maybe at the end of this, like two-week period, you realize that that was actually totally sufficient. And then that's a habit that you keep going forward.
Right? But I don't want you showing up to work and June, July, and August without a plan. And I don't want you showing up without recognizing that it's normal to have seasons of like lower energy and lower [00:09:00] motivation. You need a plan to get through those seasons.
Unless of course that's when you intentionally plan perhaps a vacation.
Because it's when we don't have a plan for these slower months, I'm just going to keep saying June, July, and August. Right. If you don't have a plan for your work during these periods of slower energy, that's when you will physically dedicate yourself to your job; you're going to show up from nine to five, but you're not really going to get anything done, right?
Because you don't have that motivation. You don't have the plan. You're just doing all that busy work stuff, but you're never doing things that move the needle. And so you start to resent your job and feel like you wasted your summer months, just sitting at your desk.
So I'm giving you permission to do something different.
Now, one tip I want to mention is that if you can't take a legitimate break over the summer, like a vacation where you're, you know, like off the grid or whatever, Then you can add some novelty to your days, a few times a week.
So maybe on a Tuesday and a Thursday you do something different for lunch, or maybe you work from home, but in a [00:10:00] new location, that's not really your home, like you work close to home.
Maybe you go into work early on Wednesdays and Fridays so that you can leave earlier in the afternoon. That's enough of a shift or a mix up in your schedule that might light a fire under your motivation. Now I say this a lot, but novelty or newness doing something a little different. Is a key ingredient of motivation.
Okay. Now, before I move on to the next question, I want to ask you for a favor. If you are listening to this podcast in a podcast app. Would you mind giving it a five star review or leaving a comment if you've been finding it helpful?
I know it's kind of a pain in the bum, but that helps me more than you know.
If you're watching this on YouTube, could you leave a comment and let me know that you are liking what you're seeing and hearing, because again, those gestures tell the algorithm to keep showing this content to other people.
And I appreciate you so, so [00:11:00] much.
All right now moving onto our second question.
And this one is from a student. Now, I don't even have to read this one cause it's so simple. The student is simply asking, should I double major in college? And I think they said they're in their second year or a sophomore in college.
So the short answer is yes if you want to and no if you don't want to.
Obviously I'll explain that answer a little bit more, but the idea here is that he, uh, double majoring is neat. And I think it's great that it's an option for people who want to do it. But I cannot think of a single scenario in which a double major would be required.
There is no company out there that's going to look at your resume and say, oh, well, you know, you know, double major in political science and English. And then look at another resume of someone who maybe majored in political science and minored in English. And then just hands down, pick the double major over the single major.
That is just not at all, how it works.
Now double majoring [00:12:00] also takes strategic planning well, in advance. You have to plan for it to happen. Or it will not happen.
Let me explain the difference between a major and a minor is essentially taking more classes in a path. Okay. So a major, I mean, every school is different, but a major is something like 36 around 36 credits. And a minor is often something like 20.
So sometimes like half of what a major is.
Now, if you want to do that, if you want to go from a minor to a major, then you need to make room in your schedule for those additional classes.
So you can do that, but it means that you're not going to be able to take some of your electives, some of your interest-based courses, or you might have to take courses over the summer. Now again, if that is what you want to do. And I think that's awesome. And then you should double major, like, why not?
Right. But if you don't want to do it, there was no practical reason to do it. It's not going to give you an advantage.
Now, [00:13:00] keep in mind that this is advice coming from somebody, someone who double majored. Yes. I have a double major. In I'm an undergrad in English and in Spanish, I started off as an English major and a Spanish minor. But then I think around the beginning of my junior year, I realized I just kind of wanted to go for it. And like get the double.
My reason was not based on any professional goals or trying to be impressive or anything like that. I just literally wanted to. Usually when I want to do something. I do it. But to make it happen, to be honest, I had to take courses over the summer to make room in my schedule because, I made that switch kind of late in the game. I had to stop taking some of my interest-based courses, which was like psych and philosophy that I liked.
Right. But at the end of the day, That is what I wanted. And so I did it. And that's neat. But not once in my professional life has that double major earned me [00:14:00] like brownie points or credits.
Now one more point I do want to make is that in some scenarios, a college or university might not offer a particular course of study as a minor in the might only offer it as a major.
So for example, let's say that you wanted to major in business and minor in Chinese, but your school only offered a Chinese major. When that scenario you might have to double major, right? If you really want to keep Chinese in your sort of like academic portfolio.
But again, you would need to determine that early enough so that you can make it work in your schedule. Honestly, I love that question because it means that you're thinking about the future, um, and you're, you're planning and you're giving it some consideration because like our future matters.
I know this sounds so cheesy, but it's true.
I hope my answer to that question was helpful as well as my answer to the first question.
Remember, you can submit your own questions for me to answer on future Q and aA episodes by going to learnandworksmarter.com and typing your question into the form on the home page. And remember: never stop learning.
