The methods used to handle April Fools are indeed as varied as people experiencing it. Some live for the prank and love to laugh and others just wish it would go away, but what about in the workplace? On one hand, you have stifling seriousness and on the other is all the endless ways people think of to goof off. Funnily enough, both end up in exactly the same place; low productivity and low morale.
As with all things, I'm sure there is a happy medium (pun intended). While it is certainly true that workplace matters rarely reflect the thrill of sinking a long putt or landing a marlin, it is just as true that if you view the tasks in your day as enjoyable you will get a lot more done.
In my own workplace I have watched an enormous shift in our productivity on this interesting point. Last year we had eight staff in one department who were delivering a management service. Things were quite serious on a daily basis and it was a "grind" to get everything finished each week. A year later, we have a team of 4 doing more work than the eight could and finishing it by Thursday afternoon most weeks.
The difference? We got organized and started having some fun! We decided that things weren't quite that serious and with that were willing to mix things up and evolve so we could get it right. Cracking jokes is certainly not going to magically make a business an overnight success, but injecting a little levity into the average day WILL make a difference.
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