So you’ve escaped from the insanity of the office to work in the sanctity of your own home or taken a new job specifically because it allows you to telecommute? Congratulations. Happily launch into your telecommuting job, but don’t avoid doing tedious or unpleasant parts of your job just because no coworkers or managers are in your home to see you! In other words, don’t give in to procrastination.
Telecommuting is good for your employer – you are one less body, after all, that has to be heated or cooled and allocated space and equipment for. It’s also beneficial for you. A recent study found that people that that telecommute are “more productive, less likely to quit, and more satisfied with their jobs and personal lives than those who spend the whole workweek in the office.” (1)
Another report found that resolutions (like New Year’s) are doomed to fail and that perfectionism, as is the common misconception, is not the root of procrastination. Perfectionists actually procrastinate less, but worry more about it. Professor Piers Steel says that motivational failures such as sticking to a resolution or diet are related to impulsiveness. “Temptations that are close at hand are hard to resist.” (2)
So one thing you can do to avoid procrastination is to remove temptations.
What temptations may lie close at hand in your home office? What things distract you from your work and are hard to resist?
Distractions don’t have to be the kind that makes you leave your desk and keyboard (although you should grant yourself about five minutes per hour to go move around). Distractions that take your mind off your work can impede performance and lead you astray even when you know better.
One school of thought is procrastinators actively LOOK for distractions. Constantly checking email, news or gossip websites, and even YouTube can be almost perfect for this. If you find yourself wondering about “what’s going on out there,” you’re probably not focused on the job at hand.
A possible weapon against procrastination is tuning into the “big picture.” Career coach Kingsley Tagbo says that you should first “create a vivid image of what it is like to have completed the project. Bring all your faculties of imagination to bear on it. Visualizing the completed task – the benefits you are reaping, the feeling of success or the admiration of your spouse - will help you anticipate the achievement you are striving for.” (3)
Another positive technique is seeking the “Zen of the Tolerable Ten.” This is an old theory that anything, even the most odious task, can be tolerated for ten minutes. Go ahead and get started on what you’re putting off. After ten minutes, you may find it’s not so bad after all. Even if you think it’s all you can stand, at least you’ve got a START at it and can try again the next hour. Once you’ve reached the Zen of the Tolerable Ten, you can try for the Tolerable Twenty.
If your procrastination is based on dread of a certain task, try to turn the problem around and find out if that the task is something that you can CHOOSE do to, not HAVE to do. That’s easier said than done, and it may turn out to be just one and the same, but I bet you can take a blank sheet of paper and come up with ten good reasons why you should choose to do the task in less than a minute.
Don’t start the list with “Because I have to.” Be more creative than that. Imagine the task fulfilled. What benefits will then ensue?
Dread can be misleading. In one of my recent jobs, I provided technical support for a buggy, problem-ridden product. Problems with this one particular application seemed to suck up all my time, and I began to dread answering these customers because I knew in advance that I could have no satisfying answer for them. Finally, I mentioned my fears to the boss, and he said, “Well, how many users are reporting this?” When I actually made a list of them and looked at the numbers, it was far fewer than I expected. It was only a very small percentage of our overall user base. I had actually been avoiding answering these customers because I had developed a sense of doom about one particular product.
According to Newton’s Laws, an object at rest will tend to remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity in a straight line, unless an external net force acts upon it.
Overcoming procrastination can be like overcoming inertia. Sometimes we need to GET UP and GET TO IT.
We humans are not perfect, so we seldom approach perfection. Just do the best you can.
In summary, if there’s something in particular that you find yourself putting off regularly in relation to your telecommuting job, remember to remove distractions, grant yourself regular head-cleansing breaks, think chose to do, not have to do, investigate and see if what you dread actually has merit, seek the Zen of the Tolerable Ten, and don’t let Newton’s Laws keep you from the joy of FLYING in your new job.
