Some days, “Have a great day!!!” is just too much to ask.
You might even be tempted to respond to this effusive well-wisher: “Have you seen the news?” “Have you seen my to-do list?” “Have you seen my team’s numbers?” “Have you seen my sleep score?”
Some days, you might just settle for “Having a day.” And yet, that doesn’t feel great either. It would be nice to do more than get through the week, to do more than endure.
I have guided many leaders whose company cultures were built on endurance. I have endured many days myself. I know how easy it is to paint a day or week as categorically “hard” or “bad.” But calling a whole day “bad” is like calling a gravel driveway “flat.” Sure, from a distance it’s flat-ish, but from an ant’s point of view, it might as well be a mountain range.
What we sometimes miss is that even on aggressively bad days, there is often an hour or two that is kind of okay. Or maybe every single last hour is hard, but within an hour, there is a minute when you laugh at a colleague’s joke or check out your good hair day in the mirror. Even if you’re in a meeting when every last minute is painful reviewing your business’s financials, you still have access to a delicious five seconds of deeply breathing in the smell of your coffee.
Or in other words: You can thin-slice your joy.
Because the last thing harried, overworked people need is to add “learn meditation” to their to-do list. Similarly, deciding to focus on fewer things sounds nice, but your boss may respectfully disagree. It would also be good to distance yourself from people who stress you out and demand your attention unfairly, but you know what? Sometimes those people are your kids.
In these moments, you can thin-slice your joy in two ways: savoring the joy already present in your day, and creating new moments of micro-joy.
Savoring your daily joys
Like scarfing down a meal while watching TV or getting some work done, it’s easy to anesthetize ourselves to pleasure without realizing it. The good news is that it takes the same amount of time to chew mindlessly as it does to savor the taste of your food—it simply requires attention. Here are three no-time-required actions you can take to bank more joy from your day:
- Appreciate a quirk. In your next meeting, look around the room (2D or 3D) and identify one quirky thing you like about a colleague. Maybe someone throws their head back when they laugh and it’s joyful. Or another person drums their fingers when they’re about to share a good idea. It’s an appreciation of their humanity and individuality, which makes us feel closer to them.
- Smell first. Before sipping your coffee, tea, or other beverage, take three seconds to smell it first. Risk looking indulgent: close your eyes and breathe in for three seconds—then sip. If it’s a particularly rough day, sprinkle some cinnamon on that cappuccino. This practice is especially useful when you feel “in your head.” Reconnecting with our senses brings us back to the present moment.
- Revel in your work. The next time you write a particularly funny Slack message, a compelling email, or create some bit of work that’s better than your average, take one minute to simply stare at it and enjoy how clever you are. We’re so often on to the next thing—and when we do review our work, we often do so with a critical eye—that we miss the part where we feel pleased with ourselves! Even enjoying a cute turn of phrase in an email is plenty to savor.
Creating new micro-joys
It would be lovely if we all had the time, energy, and budget to take up new hobbies, make new friends, and take two-hour lunch breaks. And if you can, you should! But also, joy is not all-or-nothing. A good thought experiment to get you dreaming about micro-joys is to consider what sort of habits, experiences, or moments bring you the most joy—and then identify their smallest viable unit. Here are three micro-joys to try this week:
- Ask a random question. The next time you see a colleague you like, take two minutes to get to know them a bit better. You could say, “Random question: What’s your middle name?” or “Random question: Do you have siblings?” Longitudinal studies of human happiness are very clear about what matters—and that’s the quality of our relationships. And yet, how often do we work with people and not know even the most basic facts about them? These questions shouldn’t be a long diversion from your work—even a minute of knowing someone better and that person feeling seen can be a high point of joy in your day.
- Do a doodle a day. Spend two minutes on a simple doodle. Maybe you draw a different timepiece each day (watch! clocktower!). Maybe it’s an abstract shape or a hand-lettered word. Maybe you draw a family of ducks, one day at a time. Bonus points if you do each doodle on a Post-it and then create a collection at your desk. We benefit from art, play, and self-expression during the workday, but maybe you’d garner some side-eye if you set up an easel in the office. If you love art, then a daily doodle can be your version of a micro-joy.
- Misbehave. Mischief at work can give us a much-needed shot of adrenaline, connection, and adventure. This might look like rearranging the office furniture, using Comic Sans font in your next presentation, or playing a quick round of “guess that tune” with your colleagues as you hum your favorite throwback song. At best, work is steak: rich, juicy, delicious. But sometimes it’s just not—sometimes work is broccoli. On those days, your job is to throw some cheese on it. Never gonna give you up . . . never gonna let you down . . . take it, reader! Louder, so coworkers can hear!
And have yourself a great day! Or, you know, a day—with at least one truly great moment.
