One of my favorite futurists, Jacob Morgan, post a YouTube video where he asked the question “Do you have to love your job?” He posited that it is not necessary to love every aspect of your job in order to say, “I love my job.” I agree with him but I also think that some aspects of automation may make it possible to love your job more.

Micro vs Macro

Morgan said in his video that he believes there is not a single person out there who loves 100% of their job. You have to look at your job on a micro versus macro level. On the micro level our jobs are composed of a multitude of tasks, many of which we may not enjoy doing. Those tasks that are time consuming or boring which we would just as soon do without but they are essential to the job. Do we love them? No! So does that mean we don’t love our job?

The macro level view, in Morgan’s argument, is what is important. Are you happy and satisfied with your job more than 50% of the time? He contends that if you are positive in your job more than 51% then you should consider yourself in the “I love my job” category. Do the bigger things in your job, the accomplishments, the teamwork, the relationships outweigh the smaller tasks that you hate? If the answer to this is yes, then you are in the positive.

Automation

As I watched that video I saw in myself the person that Morgan was talking about. Even though I have been on my own for a long time, something that many people aspire to do, there are a good number of things that I don’t like about it. Some of the smaller things, such as filing, I would just as soon get rid of. The bigger things, such as solving problems and writing blogs, I look forward to. In the total picture I love my job. As I watched Morgan’s video however, I wondered if we could automate away some of the micro things we don’t like about our jobs would that give us more time to do things that make us love our job?

I think the answer is yes. There is already automation that allows people to more easily schedule calls and appointments. There is already automation that allows filing and eliminates paperwork. And there is automation that makes reference checking easier and efficient.

Do you love your job? Do you agree with me and Jacob? What things have you automated in your job to make it easier to do? Let me know by commenting below.