Building better work-from-home habits?

McGibs

Hey H&A! I need some help and advice to make myself a better person!

A bit about my situation: I'm a creative director/artist/designer at a small indie game studio that I confounded about 8 years ago. All our staff works remotely, so I work from home in my underwear along with my partner (who also works as an artist/animator at said studio). I'm pretty much my own boss and we all work pretty independently, with pretty different schedules. Over the last half-year or so, I feel like my work discipline is really starting to slip, and I'd like to train myself to form better habits. I want to build myself to be better for my career, my growth and learning, and my mental health.

For pretty much all my life, I've been really terrible with procrastinating and just general slacking off. During my schooling years, I was very selecting about how and where I applied my energy; excelling in areas I was interested in, floundering in ones I wasn't. Most of the professional work I've done has been very self-directed and I've never really been forced to develop consistent work habits though dint of authority or office structure or whatnot. If the goal/deadline was met, the route the get there didn't matter much. It's been always "when I'm in the mood", rather than "It's 10am, I should start working". This obviously leads to an all-too-common loop of inconsistent productivity. I'll procrastinate until I feel like absolute trash for not actually doing anything, then I'll kick and scream and force myself to "get in the zone" and have a very productive session or two, and then I'll feel great and go back to procrastinating on the next thing. Repeat ad infinitum. My problems arent of not reaching the goal (I'm rather good at that), but its about fixing the crappy, pothole filled road it takes to get there.
1) This is terrible for my mood, because I'll fall into cliche artist funks where I'm the worst person ever and I'm terrible at everything and ohmygod I'm just going to sleep forever. This rollercoster happens every week or two, and I'm sure my partner is also getting tired of me flopping around like a fish instead of just biting the bullet.
2) It's also terrible for actually growing as an artist because getting myself to do boring things like art studies or learn difficult new things is like pulling goddamn teeth, and I'll just keep pushing these things away like a fussy baby.
3) It's terrible for productivity, because if I actually worked consistently, instead of in manic fits and starts, I'd get a lot more done overall, and feel much better while doing so. Duh.

I do all the usual procrastination things, I internet way too much, I stop working every 5 minutes to distract/reward myself, I get up and go for walks or take showers or take a nap or do anything other than the thing I've set myself to doing. Even now I'm writing this topic instead of working! Every time I go to start whatever task I have, I'll prepare for it, think about it, ruminate over it, then my goldfish brain will reset and start the whole process over again. If I start too late in the day, I'll just write off the rest of the day. When I DO actually get my teeth into something and I can accelerate my brain into a space where it remembers that working on things is good and fun, everything is great and I can usually work uninterrupted for hours. But any time I need to actually START something and get the ball rolling, that's the hard part.

I've tried using software like "get back to work!" for throttling my internet browsing, but I've never gotten it to mesh well with my needing to use the internet for work and my inner-weasel just finding dumb loopholes around it until I eventually just disable it altogether. Recently, I've been trying to set a better morning schedule; getting up earlier to do some stretches and some art studies before breakfast, but even this has been pretty rocky to stay regular. My partner is very good at getting me off my ass to work on things (recently we started planning a comic, and I've been writing almost every night for a month now), and she is probably a good helper to train myself for better habits, but I also don't want to use her as a crutch (and she doesn't want to feel like she's nagging me all the time). This is something that I need to build up myself, rather than have someone else constantly push me while I bitch and moan like a horse to water.

So, I'm asking for your advice, anecdotes, and things wot worked for you to help me get myself off my lazy behind and -consistently- actually making cool things. I do all my work in relative isolation, but I never learned how to work well with my own motivation and disciplines. It's always been a bugbear for me. This is something that needs to be resolved if I'm going to grow at the speed I want.

Darkewolfe

Get up, take a shower, get dressed in real clothes, eat breakfast, amd sit down in your office, making it a space distinct from your play time space. Set a timer, say, 30 minutes, during which you are not allowed to interrupt your work task. Take a five minute break after, then repeat, 30 minutes of uninterrupted work. Repeat.

Cauld

In the end, you've just gotta sit down and start working. Personally, once I start its much easier to continue. There are a lot of good strategies to help though:

Like Darkewolfe says getting into a work routine certainly helps. So does having a space where you only do work. I recently read about someone who reverse procrastinates (ie. I can check reddit/twitter/facebook right after i finish this task), and that seems to work well for me also.

I also try to set a realistic goal of what I want to accomplish for a day. Often once I reach that goal, I just keep going a bit because i'm already 'in the groove'. But even if I stop right after reaching my goal, I still have the sense of accomplishment of finishing what I set out to do and can go on from there guilt-free. It also helps keep me motivated going forward.

Mulletude

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Get up, take a shower, get dressed in real clothes, eat breakfast, amd sit down in your office, making it a space distinct from your play time space. Set a timer, say, 30 minutes, during which you are not allowed to interrupt your work task. Take a five minute break after, then repeat, 30 minutes of uninterrupted work. Repeat.

Yeah, this. And set a time to be up by and don't deviate unless you have a legit reason. Like, say, up by 9 and showered and ready to work by 10.

Iruka

Hey Gibs!

I work from home. I've had less trouble than some getting into a routine, but I have some suggestions. Anecdotally, I have never been one to get dressed because I hate wearing anything other than pajamas in the house. Setting an alarm is pretty crucial though, and I get out of bed, shower, and put on some fresh jammies as if they were work clothes.

Anyways, Some suggestions:

Get a paper day planner and plan out both work and fun. Its a little weird to write "Play Overwatch" into your day planner, but at the same time setting aside a specific few evenings for that kind of thing is important. A paper day planner is much less fiddly than a digital one, and it will force you to look at it and rely on it, without the added distractions of a phone app. If you have a lot of different things to get done, this will help you designate times and days and weeks for particular things.

If you use chrome, make a new Profile for work. It functions as a completely fresh environment. I have my normal login thats connected to everything, but when I write technical docs its too boring for me to have an easy link to tumblr. Make a profile that only has relevant bookmarks to work, is only logged into work related accounts, and is the only window you have open when you need to set your eyes on a task.

Use PureRef for reference and dont keep 1000 tabs open for looking at art, minimizes the chances you will browse away.


Headspace is important, which is why I take a shower before work even though no one will be here to see or smell me. Starting off the day fresh, and with a little quiet time to breath, helps me sit down to work. My job actually demands I pay attention to it, so that helps, but I do this when I have some painting to get done.

Sometimes my anxiety will spike midday. I will do some yoga breathing, or go out on the balcony and have a tea for 20 minutes. When you do this, I suggest leaving your phone and setting your timer by a task (like drinking a tea). Keeping this short but quiet helps. If you take your phone, you will go down an internet hole, so dont.

Don't reward yourself. Schedule times when you can have fun and do it regardless of if you did as much work as you wanted to, but only when you are supposed to be doing it. If friday night is fun night, have your fun, even if 4 out of 5 tasks got done. If you can train yourself to operate by your schedule, the idea of goofing off during the day will feel weird, and you'll want to maximize that work before the funtimes you scheduled.

Don't have your partner nag you, because it sucks for everybody, but do tell her what you plan to work on. If shes also an artist, do studies together, or watch classes together. My partner and I encourage each other to work, and take breaks together. Usually if we do a particularly long day of working we'll go out to eat, and take a walk in the evening. Quality, non anxiety ridden downtime is important, so make actual time for it.

If you dont have a pair, invest in some nice headphones, and when you put them on, commit to that being a work Zone. I have a 10 hr playlist of chill-ish beats to work to so I dont fuss with my music all day, too.

SmokeStacks

Mulletude wrote: »

Darkewolfe wrote: »

Get up, take a shower, get dressed in real clothes, eat breakfast, amd sit down in your office, making it a space distinct from your play time space. Set a timer, say, 30 minutes, during which you are not allowed to interrupt your work task. Take a five minute break after, then repeat, 30 minutes of uninterrupted work. Repeat.

Yeah, this. And set a time to be up by and don't deviate unless you have a legit reason. Like, say, up by 9 and showered and ready to work by 10.

This was the biggest boon to my productivity during the period of time I worked from home. Rolling out of bed whenever and working in your underwear sounds like The Dream but you will get significantly more work done if there is a clear delineation between your personal time and your work time.

I had a friend who also worked from home and their routine was to get up, get ready for work, and then take their dog on a 30 minute walk every morning at the same time. This was exercise for them and their dog, but it also functioned as a sort of "mental commute" from home to work. I tried the same thing but with a shorter walk around my neighborhood and it seemed to help me a lot.

I needed anime to post.

Another home worker here, re-emphasizing a lot of the points that have been said. Treat your work as work. Have a set office area, have a set schedule, "show up" to work every day and it can go a long way. If you have a spare computer that can be your work computer that's even better, though that might of course not be in the cards. If you absolutely must take a break for whatever reason, set a limit and head back in.

Not only will setting a clear time of "this is work time" help focus during that time, it'll also help make your offtime more enjoyable. Often when working from home you get the sense that all the time could be work time. Pecking at work and coming in and out all day will only exaggerate that sensation.

LostNinja

I'm not sure if this would work for a job like yours that is more about creativity, but when I work from home (I have an office space, but can also work from home if I choose to) I always make a reasonable size list of everything that I plan on accomplishing that day.

As others have said, I wake up and start working at the time I would be in the office, and then I work until that list is done. If that's 4:30 great, if it's 7:30 or later (which while not the norm, is known to happen) that's the trade off I'm making by working from home where more distractions are possible.

The important thing is making sure that the list of tasks to complete is reasonable and is enough to keep you on schedule to make any deadlines and avoid any crunch time rush. You should also adjust your work list accordingly should other work things pop up that takes your focus away for an extended period of time.

Jasconius

I don't know how different it is for artists, but I've been working from home at least part time now for several years, and full time for the past 12 months

and i've generally resolved that if my aim is merely to be as productive as possible, then I prefer to split my day up into two shifts. I generally do a "morning" shift between 10 and 3 (with a break for lunch). i then just stop cold and have my time off. I usually use this time to do all the things you would do "after work" anyway. Housework, make dinner for my family, spend time with them, etc)

as it happens, my wife goes to bed early because of her job, so by about 10PM, the house is empty and I do my night shift, typically to about 2AM. If I didn't want to stay up that late, I'd just start an hour earlier, no big deal

During a six month period where I did this schedule consistently, I was by far the happiest and most productive I've been while working from home. When I had to change for work obligations and force myself to do a more typical "9 to 5" things got worse quickly.

I find it's much easier to plan my work in 4 hour blocks than 8 hour blocks, so its harder to lose sight of your goals and get distracted or slack off.

When I mastered this I started to dabble in the true jedi art of just having a seven day work week where I would pepper these blocks of time around, so if I got bored on a saturday, I didn't feel drained, so it was no big deal to just go upstairs and get a head start on the week.

Otherwise, good office setup is critical. I have a strict setup where I have work computers and play computers. I don't put Steam or browse any personal websites on my work computers. They all share monitors and peripherals, so the only way I can effectively switch to play mode is by going through the process of hitting all my switches and maybe even moving a plug or two. This creates a psychological barrier that makes it a little less casual to just open up Overwatch in the middle of your project.

Technicality

What works for me (freelance Unity programmer) is simply setting a regular schedule, and NOT to work when I'm not at work.

I start at 9, take an hour for lunch and finish by 6. If I get up earlier I don't start early, and I make sure to stop when its time to stop. If I have to work late I have to work late, but I don't unless its important to a deadline or handoff. It's difficult to down tools in the middle of something sometimes but at least that means I'm buzzing to get started the next day. If you only ever stop when you don't want to work on something any more it will be harder to come back to.

I find that if I don't force myself to stop working during downtime, I start taking downtime during work and the lines get blurred and it feels like I'm mentally exhausted but also slacking off all the time.

Edit: Its also worth mentioning weekends count as official downtime for me too.

EclecticGroove

I skimmed through a bit here, but will echo some of the things I saw.

I work at home, and while I don't have a dedicated office space or anything, and certainly do tend to wander online and the like... I also am constantly aware of meetings, deadlines, due dates, etc.
When I need to get something done. I get it done, period, no screwing around.

If you do not have the ability to do this, as others mentioned above, you need to create an environment where you can.

That means a dedicated work space that is free of any and all distractions possible.
Make it so that you need to inconvenience yourself to "break out" of working.

If you have to get up to go to another room to watch TV, surf the web, play a game, whatever, then it's going to make it that much easier to just stick to work. That way you can budget work time vs taking a breather. Just remember to budget those times as well... it's useless to set a timer for work, follow that, then go get lost in Skyrim or something for 3 hours when you are on a break.

If you need to have your PC right there in the office, and your biggest time waste is the internet... that's going to be a lot harder to break.

Keeping to a schedule, as mentioned above, will help with it. Wake up for work at the same time. Get off work at the same time. Take breaks at the same time.

It might take a bit for all of that, plus any other good ideas in the thread above, to really click and work for you. But ultimately it's about getting yourself into a good habit/routine that you follow, and then making sure you stick with it.

When it starts working (and it will unless you have some more serious issues with attention), do NOT fall into the trap of assuming it's fixed and that you can start slacking/goofing off now because you can work. It's way easier to bust a routine completely than it is to get it start working.

tapeslinger

I just completed my first stint as a wfh/remote employee and I agree with a lot of the advice here! Creating the mental space of work is as important as having some kind of physical space for it.

One trick I have for days where I'm just not feeling like I'm being super productive, I put on my favorite shoes, which forces me to sit with my feet down in a more productive posture (as opposed to the very tempting and preferable couch pretzel pose) -- there are mornings where I will put my shoes on just to have a reason to get out of bed earlier.

I also learned a lot about self-motivation and that it is just-plain-harder for some people than it is for others. I have a complicated relationship with self-motivation when it comes to work, because I definitely get what-next paralysis and then end up not working on anything all day and then feel like crap for not doing something, ANYTHING, decisive.

I am a big fan of Gretchen Rubin's "Happier" podcast, where she's done some discussion at length about the different personality types of motivation, and I figured out pretty quickly that I am a person who does not adhere to interior OR exterior goal-setting, I am one of those people who kind of has to decide for myself whether or not I'm going to do something, consequences be damned, and knowing this about myself has actually made it EASIER for me to get productive things done as I'm no longer beating myself up over not meeting internal or external expectations all the time and just doing the thing at my own pace and just doing SOMETHING.

One of Mary Robinette Kowal's rules for writing when she is depressed or in a funk is "Write three sentences." (Her reasoning being, even if it hurts like hell and it sucks and feels like pulling teeth, it's over quickly, and if she feels like doing more, she can do more, but even if she only wrote three sentences, she still wrote three sentences.) Could you find something similar to that which might nudge you along? Even something like "Draw for ten minutes" on those days where you can barely pick up a stylus?

McGibs

Thanks for all the advice guys!
This past week I feel like I've made some good improvements. I've been consistently waking up at 10 and doing my morning stretches and chores. I've been giving myself a little bit of interneting time, but I'm trying to get in the habit of doing at least 30minutes of studies in my sketchbook before I start. @Iruka's suggestion of using a different chrome profile for work has been really working well. Just closing all my chrome tabs and only having bookmarks for work related sites (and blocking permissions to others) has been dramatically more productive.
I'm still writing in the evenings, which has been good and consistent, even though I have to take a lot of breaks to walk around and think.
Separating my workspace from my playspace is slightly difficult for me, given the size of my condo and the amount of hobbies that I do. Our office is also my wargamming workbench, and main gaming computer (digital art needs a beefy rig, so I can't really work on a secondary most of the time). But during evening downtime, the living room is a nice separate space where we can watch star trek and laptop, and I also paint minis on the kitchen table.

Week 1, so far, so good! I'll try to keep this ball rolling!

SatanIsMyMotor

I WFH quite often too and something I find that helps me when I feel myself getting distracted and "slipping" a bit is to reset myself by going to work in a different spot altogether for a bit. I used to just head out to a coffee shop but sometimes find them to be a bit too busy. Lately I've actually opted to rent a spot in a co-working space. You get to be amongst people doing completely different jobs and being in an atmosphere of people just simply being busy seems to have an effect on me.