We’ve heard a lot about the ‘Great Resignation’ in recent months. But there’s another trend developing among the American workforce. It’s called ‘coasting,’ and it’s happening right now. Find out what coasting at work means, why workers are doing it, and whether it’s good or bad.
Do you ever have one of those days where you wish you could coast through the day? You know, when none of your coworkers are around and you can watch Netflix or rest your mind?
You’re not alone. In fact, reports found that a good number of employees carry out coasting at work from time to time. What is coasting at work?
Coasting is a common phenomenon: you’re not achieving anything at work, and are happy about it. You do the bare minimum by opening your email only to see that you’ve got a lot of unread messages, and it feels like a mountain to climb. You try to focus on one task at a time, but deadlines are looming, and it’s hard to get anything done.
You might be more creative when you’re coasting — since you’re not putting in maximum effort all the time, your brain has room to wander off into new ideas.
You might be suffering from “coasting”— a condition where you’re not quite working at full capacity but not really resting either. It can be incredibly confusing to be in this zone, where it feels like everything is moving too fast for you to keep up with it all. If you don’t know how to coast at work, you might actually be lucky. But what does job coasting mean for your productivity? Is it bad or good?
Let’s consider some of the pros of coasting at work:
- You might be more creative when you’re coasting — since you’re not putting in maximum effort all the time, your brain has room to wander off into new ideas.
- Coasting can help you stay focused on the big picture, rather than getting bogged down by details that aren’t relevant at the moment.
- Coasting at work is a great way to make up for all that lost time when you were super busy.
- It can help you recharge your batteries and get back on your feet after a stressful week.
Now, let’s look at the cons:
- You might end up missing out on important information from your coworkers and managers, who may be trying to reach out to you about something really important.
- You might be regarded as a non-active employee, which will make you miss out on promotions and other important projects that could boost your career.
- If someone needs something from you while you’re coasting, they’ll be upset when they don’t get an immediate response to their request. This means that it could hurt your colleagues in a way sometimes.
How much coasting is too good or too bad?
It’s a common question: how much should we be working? Is it good for us to work all the time, or does it make more sense to coast every now and then?
When you’re working, your brain is constantly on the lookout for new information and experiences. When you’re not working, your brain can relax and focus on the things that are most important to you — like family and friends. So, in some ways, coasting at work might be good because when you do it right, your brain will be able to rest and replenish itself so that it can get back to work refreshed and ready to go.
But there’s another side to this coin too: when you coast at work too much, you may sometimes feel guilty about it — and that guilt holds you back from doing something great in the future. You start to feel less important and less interested. This can hurt your career in the long run because you are not challenging yourself to try other things.
If you don’t feel like you’ve given 100% of yourself during your career, that can lead you down a path where you never feel satisfied with what you’ve accomplished—even if you’ve done amazing things. While coasting at work may not be bad for you in the long run, it also isn’t necessarily good for you either—if you can’t control it.
Coasting at work is neither good nor bad. It falls in between as far as you can exercise control over it, so it doesn’t get too much and affect your career.