How much of your workday is spent doing stuff that feels boring, uncreative or just plain pointless? If your answer is in the region of ‘quite a significant portion, actually’, you’re not the only one. New research from Slack found that UK workers spend, on average, a third of their day on tasks that are “not meaningful to their job”, such as unnecessary meetings, low-value emails and excessive paperwork or data entry.

That’s a problem not only because these tasks are mind-numbingly dull, but because the overwhelm of meaningless admin can contribute to boreout or burnout. According to the Slack Workforce Index, 64% of us experience feelings of burnout once a month or more. When our days are taken up by things that feel purposeless, it’s hard to feel passionate about what we’re doing: 31% of those surveyed said they don’t feel passion for their job.

AI could be part of the solution, picking up all the mindless admin tasks so we’re free to do the work we want to be doing. But too many workplaces are either not adopting AI or are trying to use it in the wrong way – think of the companies that are attempting to replace ‘human’ tasks, like idea generation and creative thinking, with AI, rather than allowing people to outsource busywork to automation.

We’re spending a third of our days on meaningless tasks at work – and it’s causing burnout