When so many people are worried about losing their jobs, they’re scared to raise attention to this not-so-useful work.  After all, maybe if you look busy, they’re going to assume that you must be necessary.

Ultimately, though, this destroys your heart and soul.  But what do you do?

First, it’s important to expand your view to the larger context.  Your boss requires you to fill out those annoying forms which seem to have no value.  But why?  Are they for compliance with government regulations?  Do they help make the manager’s job more efficient?

Second, look for ways to make the busy-work more efficient.  Perhaps you don’t need to attend every meeting, unless that helps to make others more efficient.  Maybe those reports can be made more automatic.

Third, enlist the help of your boss.  Presumably she would appreciate you having more time to work on the important stuff, so maybe there are ways to adjust the requirements.

But don’t let the unimportant trivia keep you from doing important work.  That’s a horrible way to sacrifice your career.

An important resource

Have you looked at your local colleges lately?  If you’ve been out of school for a number of years, you might not realize that there’s been a lot of creativity in recent years.  Many workers are in career transition, and this is an increasingly important market for funding-strapped schools.  They’ve adjusted to people who are learning in addition to full-time jobs, offered teleclasses, and on-demand learning.

You don’t necessarily have to make the choice to leave your job to “go back to school.”  There’s lots of neat alternative learning models.

Connect with Carl on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get timely updates and connections to a broader range of professionals.