In every office, there are few people who do averagely good work, rarely apologize for anything and pack up cheerily at 5.30pm on the dot every day. They use their lunch break to watch YouTube or sell things on eBay. And they always leave after a year and a half, for a better position and more money elsewhere. They are the  Johnny That’ll-Dos, the Susan Shrugs-a-lot.

 The Source of all pressure

Clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd, co-author of This Book Will Make You Calm explains that workplace anxiety results from a mixture of external demands (work you’re given by others) and internal demands. “These are the pressures you place on yourself,” she says. “For example, checking and rechecking work, spending too long on each task, taking work home and setting excessively high standards.”

While muting our devices, streamlining our social lives and shaking off the haters have fast become new ambitions for the 21st century, can we also shrug off our once-steely work ethic and say ‘pfft ... that’s good enough’?

“I think one important part of caring less is not catering to the male ego,” says Hazel, 28, an advertising account manager who is used to working in male-dominated teams, “One way I found to keep myself going in my last job was realizing that the male managers who were making my life difficult were in a testosterone-filled environment that encouraged them to shout the loudest, whether it was helpful or not. I thought ‘is that how I want to be?’ and ultimately, the answer was no.”

How to become unbothered

Rather than caring about everything, choose what’s most important and let go of the pressure on the things that don’t matter to you so much. You have to let go of a list that includes: sounding pleasant in emails; sounding clever in meetings; how many retweets you get; whether you offer to make people tea enough; whether subeditors hate you; whether you should be trying to write a book, or at least trying to read one; whether you write too little about serious issues that matter and too much about custard and 90s pop culture. But everyone’s list will be different.

If you can free up your mental clutter from the less important things, you’re bound to have more time and energy for the kinds of accomplishments and relationships that lead to greater success. Stop caring quite so much about what other people perceive as success anyway.

Here are 8 key points to be less serious about your job

• Being happy is the only way to be less serious about your job. It comes from outside instead of the inside.

• Be responsible for whoever you are. You cannot control what anyone else thinks, says or does.

• Be a team player. Always try to work as a team and appreciate your teammates. It’s the key to success.

• Do not hesitate to ask for help. It’s very common to be in problems at work. So it should be your natural instinct to ask for help.

• Learn to say No. Do not do anything that doesn’t satisfy you or that doesn’t suit you. Be confident and say No.

• Don’t worry if you do mistakes. It is very common and happens to everyone.

• Focus on your present than overthinking about past or future. If your present is nice, you are automatically creating a nice past and approaching towards a nice future.

• Believe in yourself. Be confident in whatever you do and trust your ethics. 

• Always listen to music to keep your heart as light as feather.