What can I do if my job has become too easy?

If your job has become too easy, the first move is to separate three routes: get more out of the role you already have, learn something new on purpose, or build something alongside the job. Which one fits depends on how much risk you want to take and on what is actually missing: challenge, recognition, or money.

This is a common complaint that almost nobody says out loud. The job demands-resources model, from Bakker and Demerouti, shows that a job asking too little of you does the same kind of damage as one asking too much: boredom, cynicism, and a low-grade guilt, because a job that is too easy is not a complaint anyone thinks you are entitled to. Chasing more of the same work rarely fixes it. Deliberately redistributing what you already do usually does. That is job crafting: reshaping the role yourself instead of waiting for somebody to reshape it for you.

Three questions get you started. Which part of your work would you do more of, if you were allowed. Which part would you hand over tomorrow. And what do you still want to learn in your field. The answers point at one of the three routes: enriching the job you have, learning something specific, or a project of your own.