How To Make Working From Home Work
When you are unexpectedly working from your kitchen table, how to build habits for success
Working from home is difficult because your home is stuffed full of habits that are generally nothing to do with work. You don’t want to lose those habits- after all, you’re going to need them again if you don’t want to drown under piles of unwashed dishes and laundry!
But while you’re trying to get your work done those same habits lead you into procrastination. If you have ever found yourself with a sparkling kitchen come lunchtime, but realise your boss is still waiting for that report you promised him, you know how this can happen! The answer then is not to break the habits that you want to keep. Rather it is to build new habits that specifically lead you into work, that you only activate when you have work to get to.
You need cues that tell you it is time to work. Try starting your working day as if you were leaving the house to work. Shower, shave, put on makeup, dress for success, whatever your normal working day routine is... and then head for your laptop at the kitchen table.
Change your perspective- sit somewhere to work you wouldn’t normally sit in your house, even if that is just a different chair at the dining table. Don’t sit in the same seat you typically sit in to eat your meals. This different perspective can act as a cue that it is time to work.
Schedule in your favourite waste of time. Be strict, but introduce into your daily routine half an hour of guilty pleasure, half an hour of your favourite waste of time, whatever that waste of time is for you. This small concession will help keep you from taking bigger liberties later.
Don’t trick yourself into doing housework while you ponder a tricky task. While doing housework, you think about housework. If you need to think about how to complete a particularly chewy task, be active with your thinking and do it with a pen and a piece of paper. You won’t achieve anything by “thinking” while you do the dishes. Except clean dishes!
Build a habit to get back on track when distractions occur (you know they will!). With other members of your household also trying to work from home right now, distractions are unavoidable. So, you can’t avoid those distractions, but getting back on track when they’re done is a crucial skill.
Celebrate your new habits! Celebration and the emotion with which you imbue your new habits are what make those habits stick.
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