How do I stop procrastinating when working from home?
As someone who works from home, I don't have anyone to keep me in check, which makes it easy to procrastinate (especially when the project is challenging).
How do you keep yourself accountable? I would truly appreciate any tips or suggestions!
The most common advice you'll receive for this question is to use other people for accountability. Whether that's to join a coworking space or body doubling on a Zoom call, this advice focuses on using peer pressure to get things done. This isn't bad advice, but keep in mind two things:
This advice is specifically for one type of person (someone that peer pressure works on)
This approach is often used as a crutch
The benefits of this advice are that it's simple and requires zero self-reflection on why you're struggling with accountability. The downside is it's easy to look busy rather than be productive, and you don't have the tools to get the thing done when people aren't around.
Instead, I recommend two approaches:
First, start with the question, “What projects have I done without procrastinating? What was different about them?”. This allows us to do some analysis around what makes you tick.
Then, try out these experiments to test what works for you:
Sandwiching - Plan your day in a way where you put a task you hate between two tasks you like. This works great for people who default to avoidance unless there is something to look forward to.
Racing - Set a timer and race yourself to see how many tasks you can complete before it goes off. This works great for competitive people who are motivated by challenges.
Quick wins - This is the direct opposite of the commonly recommended eat the frog approach. Start your day with some quick and easy tasks, so you have some instant wins. This works great for people who thrive with momentum.
Asking this question and trying out these experiments will help you start to uncover your motivating factors.
Second, consider you may not be struggling with the specific project but rather the overwhelming freedom of your day. With in-person school/work, you were used to having some default structure to your day: commuting, coffee breaks, lunchtime, etc. When you work from home, you must create this structure for yourself, and many people forget to.
This leads to them freezing due to the overwhelming freedom of their day. They know what they have to do, but the lack of structure leads to them scrambling to figure out how exactly to get it all done. Instead, work on creating a balance of structure within the freedom.
Start by building your work from home commute, defining your end of workday, and using the ideas from the work style profiles I shared to create a personalized schedule.
Don't burn yourself out by trying to complete tasks via sheer power of will. Learn your motivating factors, then apply this information to design a personalized workday. Rather than using a bandaid fix like peer pressure, this approach focuses on making work work for you: more effort but greater reward.
If you're looking for additional help building a personalized schedule, book a coaching call here.
