Working Productively
Trying To Get Work Done
I’ve been thinking about the pluses of working some place other than my home. Sure working from home has its perks, but I’m starting to wonder if actually leaving my house and going to work each morning would be a really good thing.
Of course as I write this I can’t help thinking how absurd this might sound to some people. There are people who dream of working from home. What could be better than rolling out of bed each morning, putting a pair of pants on, grabbing a cub of coffee and waddling to the office.
I submit that structure, atmosphere and all that is involved in your space may be the reason this could or couldn’t work for you.
Why It Doesn’t Work So Well For Me
I have been working from home off and on my entire adult life. I have found that if I am not extremely intentional in how I approach my days and my work… I do other stuff first or instead of doing the work that needs to be done.
That is the biggest problem for me. I am by nature the type of person that says “I’ll do it later.” To be honest if there wasn’t deadlines I would seldom get anything done. The simple fact that I can go online and research and read about things that I am currently involved in is powerful. But it is also very apt to produce “bunny trails.” I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve been working on something, switched over to the web to check on one part of that and then realized an hour later I haven’t done any more work on the project.
So What Do I Do About It
This is a question I am currently working on an answer for. I’ve tried several things and some of them have been extremely helpful.
Scheduling things, writing down what I want to work on for any given day and then sticking to that has been really helpful. The simplicity, yet thoroughness of the Storyline Productivity Schedule has proven to work pretty well for me so far.
Getting up earlier helps. I’m not usually an “early bird.” (That’s why I take more pictures of sunsets than sunrises!) I’d much rather stay up till 1:00 AM working on something than get up at 5:00 AM and work on things. But when I do get up earlier I tend to get a whole lot more good work done. (The distinction between good work and mediocre work is important.)
What I Haven’t Done About It (Yet)
One thing that I am currently in the process of figuring out is whether or not I should use a “block out” type of app on my devices. I think it could be very profitable to set myself a block of time to check my emails, make my rounds on the web and then lock everything down for a few hours so that I am “forced” to move on to other things. The biggest problem is that I haven’t found a good app that does this the way I want it to for Windows. (Any suggestions?)
This post is just about long enough for one day. If you’ve got any thoughts on being productive, or have a schedule, app or method that works well for you… I’d love to hear about it!