Do You Procrastinate Working From Home?
Reaching goals is a bit elusive for most people. This elusiveness is compounded in the virtual world. Procrastination will strike if you are not conscious of staying on task. There are more things to distract you, which is why it is even more critical that you master the art of focusing your attention. The key to being productive in the virtual world is pure and simple – focused attention. The concentration of energy and attention toward meeting a goal or achieving it will help you avert procrastination. Just the awareness that you are putting off tasks knowingly and not reaching your goals can help you avoid the procrastination demon. Procrastination affects at least 20 percent of people (You Are Not So Smart, 2010). That percentage may be much higher in the virtual workplace.
If you have a to-do list that goes on for pages and pages, it is going to be hard for you to feel a sense of accomplishment. It is also going to be hard for you to know when to “turn it off” for a while. This will lead to procrastination. If you can’t get it all done anyway, what is the use? If you have too much to do, more than is humanly possible, why bother to do anything? Find a distraction and don’t think about it for a while. Everyone procrastinates sometimes; in the virtual world, distractions are increasingly available. Procrastination in large part reflects our inability to cope with perceived pressures. Endless to-do lists give you another reason to put things off.
Authentic productivity is not arbitrary surfing, it is not net-wandering or aimless searching, it is not chatting or texting, it is not even responding to endless email. It is energy that is focused and concentrated on enacting your priorities. It takes clarity, concentration and directed energy to have focus.
Focus doesn’t allow for excuses, doesn’t act like a defeatist and doesn’t get lost along the way. When you stumble or fall, when an obstacle gets in your way, when your Internet connection dies or the computer crashes, or whatever your latest challenge may be, if you are going to be productive in the virtual world, you must get up, brush yourself off, get back on target and focus. It is that simple – no, really – it is that simple. Distractions may happen but productivity and success require focus. The virtual world is more relaxed but requires a high degree of focus to be authentically productive. #VirtualWork #RemoteWork #PJEffect WFH #NSFW #ThePajamaEffect
