Are you working on any meaningless tasks?

asp3

asp3

Senior Member
Location
Silicon Valley, CA
For me a meaningless task would have an identifiable end point or conclusion. You may determine what meaningless means for you.

I'm currently working on picking my favorite five star (my highest rating) song for each year I have more than one five star songs. There are some years that I don't give five stars to a song so some years end up without them.

It really is meaningless to anyone but me, but I will be posting my list on the rateyourmusic.com music forum and asking folks to post one five star song per year themselves. I'm not sure what sort of response I'll get there but folks do tend to love posting lists there.
 

Ruthanne said:
Most things I do seem to be meaningless more and more.
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Me too!

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Unless a person is very severely physically and mentally incapacitated, why would one choose to pursue a meaningless task? Granted, there are things I do that might appear meaningless to others but, for me, they have purpose. Tedious, sometimes. Meaningless, rarely.

Good thread though. asp3. It prompted me to do a quick self inventory.
 
Murrmurr said:
I'm always tweaking my apartment, rearranging the furniture and the art, switching out the bookcases and shelf units, making different curtains, repainting the pottery and stuff - generally tweaking the atmosphere of the rooms. No one really cares except me.
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I dunno, surely your visitors notice ...

I hadn't had a visitor in over 14 months due to covid , when my daughter arrived having not been in my home for 3 years as she lived abroad..

I'd been very bored with my livingroom, as one does get when stuck looking at it day in and day out... and DD came into the house in December just gone when she returned to the UK , and said..''oh mum how beautiful this room is''...

..I just needed to see it through someone else's eyes :D
 
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I am not sure I do anything meaningless. Every task I do, even if seems to be unimportant is most likely important to me or I wouldn't be doing it. Many daily tasks I can do without really thinking about it (which is why I play music most of the day). Okay, I just thought of one that seems to be meaningless, I color in adult coloring books when I sit in my recliner. Nobody else sees them unless I put them on my wall. But then..........doing it relieves stress or pain.
 
Personally I'm not good at "repetition"...over and over again, mindless things...too creative I guess.
Didn't think we would live long enough to get the 8 acres mowed around the house, Jim not liking to spend his days on a tractor, it was like being in the navy, bout the time you finish painting the ship its time to start painting the boat all over again! So hired Pedro & Co. to do it ...that's worked now for about 30 years!
 
Murrmurr said:
I'm always tweaking my apartment, rearranging the furniture and the art, switching out the bookcases and shelf units, making different curtains, repainting the pottery and stuff - generally tweaking the atmosphere of the rooms. No one really cares except me.
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I don't believe that 'tweaking' is useless. What we look at on a daily basis colors our mood. Looking at something that is pleasing to our eye lifts our spirits. We have been put in a situation where our home is our own small world. We should make it as nice and as comfortable as we can.

I feel the same way about our personal appearance. Since the beginning of the restrictions, I have been getting dressed every morning and putting on a little eyeliner and lipstick -even though I might be staying in for the day. Why? Because when I stand in front of my bathroom sink mirror washing my hands, it's just too depressing to see myself in my jammies and a bland look on my face at all hours of the day. It keeps my mood up.
 
Liberty said:
Personally I'm not good at "repetition"...over and over again, mindless things...too creative I guess.
Didn't think we would live long enough to get the 8 acres mowed around the house, Jim not liking to spend his days on a tractor, it was like being in the navy, bout the time you finish painting the ship its time to start painting the boat all over again! So hired Pedro & Co. to do it ...that's worked now for about 30 years!
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I'm the same absolutely can't do repetition... it would send me insane..

I remember when I was a around 19 years old my sister and I both took a temp job lasting 6 weeks, for extra Christmas money in a plastics factory..both of us were in different departments both doing different repetitive jobs.. hers more so than mine.. it was mind numbing, where every 5 minutes seemed like a whole day... .. same thing every minute, over and over, and over again...

I lasted 3 weeks, couldn't even make the whole 6 weeks ( my sister did ) ... I thought I was losing my mind....how other people are able to switch off their mind to do those repetitive jobs for years on end, is beyond me... I take my hat off to them, because I certainly couldn't do it..
 
Ceege said:
I don't believe that 'tweaking' is useless. What we look at on a daily basis colors our mood. Looking at something that is pleasing to our eye lifts our spirits. We have been put in a situation where our home is our own small world. We should make it as nice and as comfortable as we can.

I feel the same way about our personal appearance. Since the beginning of the restrictions, I have been getting dressed every morning and putting on a little eyeliner and lipstick -even though I might be staying in for the day. Why? Because when I stand in front of my bathroom sink mirror washing my hands, it's just too depressing to see myself in my jammies and a bland look on my face at all hours of the day. It keeps my mood up.
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Absolutely.
Thatā€™s a great post.
I also enjoy having a pleasant atmosphere so keep the house clean & tidy as well as myself. The way we look after ourself and our surroundings reflects how we feel about ourselves. ( just my opinion )
 
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Tommy said:
Unless a person is very severely physically and mentally incapacitated, why would one choose to pursue a meaningless task? Granted, there are things I do that might appear meaningless to others but, for me, they have purpose. Tedious, sometimes. Meaningless, rarely.

Good thread though. asp3. It prompted me to do a quick self inventory.
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Who is severely mentally or physically incapacitated? People can still have to do meaningless things with all their physical and mental capacity working well. So I say malarkey to that.
 
MarciKS said:
so we just all got called mentally and physically incapacitated?
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That's not at all what I intended. As I wrote that I was thinking of my late father-in-law who, during his last year, was almost totally paralyzed and in serious pain.

I think others have alluded to this same point. If we choose to do something, even if only to bring relaxation or reduce stress, that activity has purpose and meaning for us. Is there actually anyone here who chooses to do things that have absolutely no value whatsoever for themselves or anyone else?
 
I like to have a few meaningless tasks. I kind of zone out while doing them and find it relaxing.
Years ago I took a job for a short time on an assembly line winding cassette tapes.
I had never done anything like that before. Just stand there measuring off 60 or 90 minutes, chop, and do it again and again.
The day went so quickly because my mind was elsewhere. I was thinking of my new home and ideas I had, I could mentally make out my shopping list and recipes, relive some wonderful times I had.
These days I am collecting snake plants. Over the years I've been through cactus, succulents, and a host of other plants.
I have made tags for each with the variety, common name and origin.
I'm sure know one who comes to our home is the least bit interested in the names of my snake plants but it is meaningful to me.
 


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