Nikulas, this excerpt from Michael Browns book The Presence Process might point you in the right direction.

Before we discover how to integrate our unconscious mental activity it plagues us twenty-four hours a day.

As a result, when we are at work, though we may assume our full attention is on the task at hand, it seldom is. Much of our attention is involved in the unconscious conflicts that are taking place within us.

Once we integrate this, our ability to focus on our current activity increases. The consequence is that tasks that used to be challenging and draining become effortless and are completed in a much shorter period of time. We have a sense of having more time, and simultaneously a sense that everything we are attending to is happening faster.

Also, because we have less unconscious activity to distract us from current activities, we discover we enjoy and feel energized by tasks that previously drained us. Increasing present moment awareness transforms the mundane chores we once resisted resisted into meaningful and joyful activity.

Don't you agree we are meant to enjoy the journey instead of the end result?

Yes, I agree. And I also think that it's really important to make all the little things in life more fun to make life more fun in general.

It doesn't mean that these tasks must give you the most joyous experience that you ever had in your life. It just means that you at least make an effort to make them feel better first (not joyful, not the best thing ever...just better).

Making an attempt to make a task feel better before doing it, is moving towards alignment. And making an effort to move towards alignment is the real secret to life I believe.

Doing your taxes

So for instance I might feel stressed and angry when I think about doing my taxes. Therefore I would make an attempt to feel better about it first. I wouldn't expect to feel amazing about doing them (though it might happen too).

If I just could feel better than stressed (e.g. bored), it would make my life better.

How do you seek joy in mundane, boring yet essential life tasks?

The best and easiest way for me is to ask myself how I want to feel when doing my taxes and then I try to create the feeling of it in my body (solar plexus area).

Actually I ask 2 questions.

1. How do I feel now about doing my taxes?
2. How do I want to feel about doing my taxes?

So I might say "I feel stressed. I want to feel content and easy about doing my taxes.

Then I take those two emotional words (easy and content) and say them in my mind and I try to feel them in my body. So this is how my mental monologue would sound like.

"Easy...content...easy...easy...easy.......content...easy...content...how would I feel if I felt easy and content about doing something?...ease...content...ease...how would I feel if I felt easy and content about doing my taxes?....ease...content.....content...ease...how would someone else feel if he felt easy and content about doing taxes?...ease...content...contentment...easy..."

If I can't make the leap to generate the feeling of ease and contentment I would try "bored" or "impatience" first. Because at least it's better than feeling stressed and angry, right?

This might take 1-5 minutes.

So I try to stay with this feeling in my body long enough so that it automatically changes my feeling about doing the task.

You don't have to think about the specifics. It's sufficient to create the general feeling in your body using a very general emotional word.

And the really cool thing is that if you stay with this general emotional feeling in your body, specifics come to your mind automatically. So your mind might suddenly come up with all those little reasons why it is ok to feel content and easy about doing taxes.

Actually this is Abraham's concept of "creating a grid". It is very effective and easy to do. You might want to try it.

I pray. A lot. And I try to dedicate the task to God.

Sounds kind of lofty and all that, but it seems to help me get the job done. Then, I am doing the task for God, for good, instead of just myself. I picture God smiling down on me, saying, "Good job, Jai! I am proud of you!"

I break larger tasks into little sections, and try to do a section at a time with lots of breaks. This worked well on my homework for school. I rewarded myself a little for each section completed. And I kept praying.

Hope this helps. It's what I do, anyway.

Jai

This is a very timely question for me. I have been observing my own attitudes toward "Things I Gotta Do Today", and working to mould them into a better-feeling place. I had been dreading small, silly things recently, and really diminshing my own experiences by doing so. The answer for me, is right there in your question. :)

Notice that in these examples, it is not the end result will be as of doing these things. I am talking about nothing more than the activity itself.

It is usually only when I keep the end result in mind, that I find mundane tasks less than amusing.

It is certainly the attainment of the goal that motivates me to engage in the experience, but then it's all about getting to somewhere I am not at this moment, which keeps me feeling "less than". Until the goals are accomplished, there is a negative energy attached to all of it, for me.

So my solution is that I do set goals (using The Place Mat Process), but then drop the idea of the end result, and give myself over to the experiences they bring me.

There is a lot to be enjoyed in the activity itself if you simply remove the goal of getting to that end result. Solving puzzles, absorbing new information, meeting new people in new situations - these are all things people do for fun, if you think about it. And the dishes? Warm running water and a soapy, good-smelling puddle to play in? Love it! :D

This thought has created a very helpful change in how I view a lot of my life; taking much of my day from being goal-oriented to being experience-oriented. I am loving it, I think mainly because I don't always achieve my goals (or wind up finding them a hollow victory), but I always achieve an experience. Very satisfying.

:)