OK… focus.
Maybe I’ll just go on youtube a bit first.
(1 hour later)
Hyuk hyuk hyuk, that was great. I really should eat something too. I need fuel to work! Brain food and all that.
…since I’m eating, I might as well make a proper meal. Salmon fishcakes and baked potato? They’re healthy… (and unnecessarily long to cook). I’ll just go to the supermarket and get some ingredients.
(2 hours later)
That meal was tiring. I’ll see what Mark is up to. Ok I’ll watch the first half, but then I really need to get on.
etc. etc. etc. ad infinitum.
This is a familiar pattern for all of us. I have an amazing ability to take a 20 minute piece of work, and make it last 8 hours. Easily. And feel guilty about it, and pass up social events to boot. I’ve tried everything to just FOCUS – brute force, meditation, NLP (neurolinguistic programming), tidying my room repeatedly. Always without success. Finally I came across this one thing that has changed the way I work permanently. Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of it, it has taken me several years to truly appreciate this lesson:
Make yourself uncomfortable.
I no longer work at home. I would always fool myself that I was working and never got anywhere, wasting literally years of my life.
1: Find somewhere you are able to work. Somewhere boring and shit.
2: Make sure it is slightly further from your house than is comfortable, so you can’t just come home when you’re bored.
3: Set yourself a time goal, or a task goal. Whichever works best for you.
4: You will complete the task/work faster than you thought possible, simply because you do NOT want to stay in that place any longer than absolutely necessary.
5: Once you have done your time, go home, feel the relief like a man out of jail. Enjoy the rest of your guilt-free day.
The quote ‘work hard and play hard’ seems appropriate here. Even if I have a small task to do (30 minutes or less), I will get out of the house and go down to the library, where it is hot, tense, crowded, smelly and there’s that constant TAPTAPTAPTAPTAPTAP of keyboards.
Even if it’s raining, midnight, whatever. Don’t listen to that voice that says ‘it’s fine, it’s only a 20 minute piece of work, why do you have to LEAVE THE HOUSE for such a menial task?’. That voice is a liar! Try this one thing, and believe me, your quality of life will skyrocket – you’ll be able to enjoy your guilt free ‘off-time’ and get work done as fast and effectively as possible.
