Often when I talk about home working to someone who is office-based, they reply, ‘I could never work from home. I’d spend all day in my pyjamas watching daytime TV.’ What they mean is that they’re afraid that away from the eyes of bosses and colleagues they’d never get anything done, that they would procrastinate.
And those of us who do work from home will probably admit that there are things we tend to put off, knowing it would be better to get them done right away. We may have got into financial difficulty by not sending invoices out on time, or in trouble with government departments for being late with paperwork.
The trouble with procrastination is that it drains energy from us every time we think about that dreaded task and then stuff it to the back of our minds again. Far more energy than it would take to complete.
So why do you procrastinate?
- It might be that you don’t really understand what you’re supposed to be doing, and maybe feel too silly to ask.
- Perhaps you just don’t like the job, you feel you’re not very good at it and it bores you.
- You anticipate it will take ages and there’s never a big enough time slot in your day.
- There’s an emotional charge to the task – you’re scared about doing your accounts because you fear you’re making less money than last year. In fact you might even be losing money, and you don’t know how you’d handle that or how you would turn the situation around.
Recognising procrastination
If you can recognise when you are starting to procrastinate you can get to grips with it so much faster:
- Is there a job or a certain kind of job you repeatedly put off? I read once that it’s a good idea to put a red dot on a sheet of paper every time you look at it and then put it back on the pile. At least then you’ll know just how often you’ve put it off. And I’m sure you could devise a way of doing it for stuff on the computer too.
- Is there an irrelevant job you’ve noticed becomes suddenly very appealing? Possibly something you would normally procrastinate about – cleaning the oven, updating your social media profiles, filing all those papers teetering on your desk. What are you doing or thinking about when you embark on this displacement activity?
- Do you keep on preparing for the job long after you could have started it, just in case there is an essential piece of information you might miss?
Simple ways to detach the energy leech
These are my favorite ways of overcoming procrastination, and you may well have your own:
- Is it something you must do yourself or could you delegate or outsource?
- Chat to someone about it, anyone, not necessarily someone in your field. They may well throw fresh light on something you have struggled with for ages.
- Do the bit you like best about that job. It will give you the momentum to keep moving on the rest.
- Start making notes, doing research, gathering material, thinking about it. Once it’s in your mind in a positive way, not as something to be constantly pushed aside, you’ll be amazed how many ideas come from nowhere.
Congratulate yourself when you’ve tackled it
It’s a great feeling when you’ve overcome those procrastinating tendencies and either arranged for someone else to deal with the job or completed it yourself. Take some time to acknowledge you’ve done so and share the good news with family and friends. Give yourself a treat – if you’ve done it this time you can certainly do it again!
By Judy Heminsley a passionate advocate of working from home
Image by L-T-L
