Miss Em links today to an article about procrastination and productivity. It’s pretty interesting. I’ve thought about this sort of thing a lot lately, and I think the key to getting things done while I’m at home is to get into work-mode. Dress to shoes, like FlyLady says…but also change my computer experience, so that I’m less inclined to goof off when I should be doing my work. I think I can accomplish this with separate logins: one for work, one for play. Each login will have its own desktop scheme and Favorites, though they’ll share the My Documents folder, I think. The work login will have a plain backdrop (or maybe text saying “Get Back to Work”), while the play login can be anything I want. (I’m also considering a separate login that is set up completely in Japanese, for when it’s time to study the language.)
Here’s the article’s conclusion. I’m citing it because it echoes my own thoughts and feelings about procrastination, and it actually works well as an introduction to the theme of the article. For more information, go read it in full.
I used to procrastinate all the time. So much so that I thought I must be avoiding work for a reason, but when I did manage to get some work done, I’d find that I was no worse off than if I had procrastinated, in fact I felt better about myself when I got work done.
Then why did I put it off? This question plagued me for years. I felt guilty and I doubted myself – are other people working harder than me? Is something wrong with me?
Now I know that procrastination is a habit, and so is productivity. You can disrupt your negative behaviors, and reinforce your productive ones. It takes some work to implement this system, but by doing so, you’ll learn what to avoid and what to do to be more productive.