What's next
Reshape your job toward what you enjoy
A practical exercise to make the job you have fit you better, one small change at a time
Choose one task, one working relationship or one way of seeing your work that you could shift toward what you enjoy, and try it for a month.
- 20 minutes
- Just you
- Every few months
- Worksheet
Why this can work
Most jobs have more give in them than they appear to. Shifting what you spend time on, who you work with or how you think about the work can make the same job feel noticeably different. Trying one change for a month turns it into a test rather than a leap.
Read moreHow to do job crafting
You’ll come away with one change to try for a month and a date to check whether it helped.
- Pick what you'd like more of.
A task, a kind of problem or a kind of person that gives you energy. If you're not sure, look back over the last two weeks: which hours went fastest?
- Write down one possible shift in each of three areas.
A task you could take on, hand off or do differently. A relationship you could build or spend more time in. A way of thinking about the work that makes the duller parts mean more. Short answers are fine.
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- Choose the one that helps your team too.
If a shift would move work onto someone else or change what your manager expects, it needs a word first.
- Tell your manager, if it touches their plans.
Frame it around what the team gets, and keep it small: one change, one month, then a check.
To: your managerI've been thinking about where I do my best work, and I'd like to try a small change for the next month: the change you want to try.
I think it would help the team because how it helps your manager or team. It shouldn't affect anything that stays the same.
Could we check in after four weeks to see how it's going? Any advice before I start would be welcome.
Swap the highlighted parts for your thing. Works on Slack, in email, or said out loud. - Try it for a month, then look back.
Put a date on your calendar four weeks out. Did the week feel different? Did the work get better? Keep it, adjust it, or try a different shift.
Tip: Change one thing at a time. If you shift three things at once, you won't know which one helped.
Good times to repeat it: every few monthswhen the job starts to feel flatafter a change of team or manager
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
How you think about a task, who you have lunch with, and the order you do things in are often entirely yours. Start there if asking feels hard.
What might make this harder
Start with how you see the work and who you work with; both have room even in strict roles. Small task changes, like the order you do things in, count too.
Questions people ask
What is job crafting?
An idea from researchers Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton: people reshape their jobs by changing their tasks, their relationships at work and how they think about the work. Small changes can make the same job feel more meaningful.
How can I make my job more enjoyable without quitting?
Pick one change toward what you enjoy, a task, a relationship or how you see the work, and try it for a month. Choosing one that also helps your team makes it easier to keep.
How do I ask my manager to change my responsibilities?
Keep it small, frame it around what the team gets, and suggest a trial with a check-in after a few weeks. A one-month experiment is easier to agree to than a permanent change.
Why this works, and where it comes from
Jobs get talked about as fixed things you take or leave. In practice, most are more like clay than stone. The people doing a job reshape it every day, usually without noticing. Some drift toward the problems they find interesting, spend time with colleagues they learn from, and hold on to a reason the work matters. Others let the job shape them. Over a year or two, the difference can be large.
This adapts job crafting, described by Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane Dutton in a 2001 paper. Drawing on examples such as hospital cleaners who saw their work as part of caring for patients, they proposed that people reshape their jobs by changing their tasks, their relationships and how they think about the work, and that this changes what the work means to them. This exercise makes it deliberate and small: one change, tried for a month.
The part people miss is the other side. A change that only helps you tends to get quietly undone; one that makes your manager's or team's life easier tends to stick, and sometimes grows. People can usually influence their jobs more than they think, and a lot of that influence starts with saying what you'd like. Your manager may have no idea which parts of the job you love. If you haven't told them, they haven't had the chance to help.
Reshaping works when the job is roughly right and could fit better. If the real problem is a manager who treats you badly, or pay that doesn't cover your life, a month of small shifts won't touch it. That calls for a direct conversation or a search, not a month of experiments.
Other simple things to consider
What to do next
More in What's next
A few minutes that compound
Do it with Truest and it goes on your permanent record, in a Career Vault your employer doesn’t own.
See how Truest worksAlready a member? Log in- A reminder beforePut it on your calendar and Truest reminds you before it starts.
- It comes back if it slipsA missed one comes back around instead of disappearing.
- Every week it happens countsEach week you do it shows on your record, next to what you said matters.
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Written by Truest, based on Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work (Amy Wrzesniewski and Jane E. Dutton). Last updated September 25, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.