Difficulty Being Productive Working At Home
If you have difficulty being productive working at home then you are not alone.
This can be especially frustrating if you, like me, work a regular job all week and want to use evenings and weekends to build a business on the side.
All week during the day I have great hopes and dreams of what I’ll do when I get home. I think, “I’ll be free from all the restrictions of a boss and responsibilities I normally have. I will be able to do the things I want to do.”
But then I get home and can’t seem to find the focus to actually produce anything.
I’ll “get set up” so to speak. I go down to my desk, get my computer set up, and start thinking about what I might do. Then, without fail, I start to vacillate between browsing twitter, online window shopping, and thinking about how I want to build a business.
In short I become “all thoughts and no action.”
Finally Being Productive
So, here I am finally being productive. Finally.
It’s actually not that bad. I feel relieved to be putting thoughts to the page. I know this is a critical part to establishing a new blog. No posts no growth. It’s a simple as that.
What Stops Me From Being Productive
Everything, I think.
I seem to be able to find an endless list of distractions and excuses that keep me from the simple act of writing a post.
I list a few off the top of my head.
- “That’s not a good idea.”
- “Hmmm… what should I write about.”
- Endlessly refreshing twitter to see if someone I follow posted something new
- “I need to finish this basement remodel.”
- Browsing guitar pictures on Sweetwater for hours
- Watching videos of people I follow on Youtube
- “Practicing” guitar while I watch the above videos
- Sitting on a 2 hour live stream and thinking I have no time to write or work on building the business side of a blog
Rinse, repeat.
Then I think, “Well when the weekend get here then I know I’ll have the time to work on things. I’ll do it all day this weekend. This weekend I’ll do it.”
And wouldn’t you know it the weekend comes and I do the same things for 16 ours a day instead of 4 hours in the evening. Again, nothing gets done. I keep telling myself, “Tomorrow,” or, “THIS weekend.”
Difficulty Being Productive Ends By Starting
Once you’ve started, you’ve started. The cycle has been broken. Procrastination has finally, finally, ended.
If I try to identify what happened to get me moving I have to examine exactly what happened mentally.
In a way I’m not sure.
A few minutes ago before I began writing this I was doing the usual twitter browsing, shit-posting comments, and dreaming about getting a business started that would allow me to quit my job.
I think I finally told myself to start working and stop worrying about all the little things I could do to make my workspace better.
Today when I was sitting down faced with my 7 year old lap top in my chilly basement I was thinking I need to get on buying a new computer and 2 monitors so I can have a nice work station.
I was also thinking about getting the drywall up on the ceiling in the room I’m renovating so I could “have a better workspace.”
The tricky thing about these things is that they are things that actually need to be done.
However, the don’t need to be done before I actually get my butt to work on writing a post and doing a few things to work on building a business.
Do Not Do What You Hate
Love him or hate him, Jordan Peterson is a very competent psychologist.
He has a new book coming out called “Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life.”
He has been posting the titles of each chapter on his twitter feed.
Rule V is “Do not do what you hate.”
I’ve heard it said somewhere else as “Do more of what you love.”
So I was sitting here with that running through my mind, “do not do what you hate.”
I thought, “Do I hate this? Do I hate writing? Working on a business? Practicing guitar? Is that why I’m not able to work at home?”
I was frustrated because I was feeling I can’t get organized, produce enough material to make this successful, play enough guitar to be good at it, make videos, create content, figure out what social media strategy I need, fix up my basement, take care of my son, and live any kind of life at the same time.
What’s really strange is I can put all that aside to show up to an employer and work but I struggle to do the same for myself.
Shut Up And Play Yer Guitar
Shut up and play yer guitar. These are words made famous by the late Frank Zappa.
I think this phrase encapsulates perfectly the final thought I had before getting to work on this post. Basically telling myself, “Ok, enough with the B.S. write something. Now.”
Like me you’ve probably dealt with these thoughts many times.
I have.
Not only that I’ve read many books like “Do The Work” by Steven Pressfield.
He calls procrastination “resistance.” Resistance is all the things, people, thoughts, and situations that people use to justify not getting started.
In retrospect I can see clearly how I was being a “professional excuse maker.” I was doing anything and everything to avoid doing the work I knew I wanted to do. I was giving myself every out I could think of.
Difficulty Being Productive: Overcoming The Resistance
Like I stated earlier the key to starting is simple: start.
Once in motion things are much easier. I immediately notice when I’m engaging in the avoidance tricks. I’ll catch myself starting to browse my twitter feed thinking, “Oh, where’s that post on what I’m talking about?” and start to drift back into avoiding the work. So, I’ve stopped a couple times in this post and came back when I realized I was drifting.
In the end I realize this will be an ongoing battle. One that will likely go on for months if not years on end if I am to be successful at any one of the business ideas I am going to pursue.
And finally if you are having this difficulty as well know that you are not alone. Also know that you can get started too. The above books are a good start. But you don’t need them to get started. You just need to get started.
Thank you for reading and good luck!
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