Working From Home: How to declutter the chaos and start focusing on work
Working from home is not only the new trend these days but literally the only way you can work as stringent lockdowns and social distancing have become the need of the hour in our combined fight against COVID-19.
Even so, there are many who still don't feel quite comfortable working out of their homes and for quite valid reasons. The most common and important problem is that of sheer distraction, focusing becomes quite hard when your mom or wife is shouting something in the same home where you're doing a creative work like programming or writing.
These distractions may not be so bothersome if its a monotonous job you're doing such as data-entry in a web form or some other grunt work like maintaining accounting books online. Your mind is typically habituated for these tasks (just like it is for driving a car or riding a bike), so you can probably easily manage them.
But in case of crafts that require creative thinking, its not so easy. Your mind may be pondering upon "How should I formulate this SQL join?" and exactly at that moment, your mom shouts, "What should I cook for dinner today?". You're suddenly distracted from the technical problem at hand and you may not like it.
So, how should you solve this dilemma? There isn't any easy answer to it. But considering that its the only available working alternative right now, you must somehow get habituated to it, you must somehow learn to do your work without getting stressed from these distractions. It helps to remember your capabilities and the fact that the best working atmosphere shouldn't necessarily be the enemy of good enough (or even average) working atmosphere.
Remember that humans can do extraordinary things even in worst situations when push comes to shove.
Remember that scene from the first Iron Man movie? Tony Stark (Iron Man) is captured by terrorists and stuck in a cave in Afghanistan. His physical condition is at all time low. After getting severely injured in an attack, he is at the mercy of an Exide battery for his heart to function. It was in those abysmal conditions that he invented the first ever Iron Man prototype!
Like Tony Stark, you must learn to focus on your work so intensely that it shouldn't matter whether its a lab or a cave you're working at! A lab is obviously preferable to a cave but even a cave is good enough to get the work done. If you think along those lines, a home isn't such a bad place to work at all!
Even so, there are many who still don't feel quite comfortable working out of their homes and for quite valid reasons. The most common and important problem is that of sheer distraction, focusing becomes quite hard when your mom or wife is shouting something in the same home where you're doing a creative work like programming or writing.
These distractions may not be so bothersome if its a monotonous job you're doing such as data-entry in a web form or some other grunt work like maintaining accounting books online. Your mind is typically habituated for these tasks (just like it is for driving a car or riding a bike), so you can probably easily manage them.
But in case of crafts that require creative thinking, its not so easy. Your mind may be pondering upon "How should I formulate this SQL join?" and exactly at that moment, your mom shouts, "What should I cook for dinner today?". You're suddenly distracted from the technical problem at hand and you may not like it.
So, how should you solve this dilemma? There isn't any easy answer to it. But considering that its the only available working alternative right now, you must somehow get habituated to it, you must somehow learn to do your work without getting stressed from these distractions. It helps to remember your capabilities and the fact that the best working atmosphere shouldn't necessarily be the enemy of good enough (or even average) working atmosphere.
Remember that humans can do extraordinary things even in worst situations when push comes to shove.
Remember that scene from the first Iron Man movie? Tony Stark (Iron Man) is captured by terrorists and stuck in a cave in Afghanistan. His physical condition is at all time low. After getting severely injured in an attack, he is at the mercy of an Exide battery for his heart to function. It was in those abysmal conditions that he invented the first ever Iron Man prototype!
Like Tony Stark, you must learn to focus on your work so intensely that it shouldn't matter whether its a lab or a cave you're working at! A lab is obviously preferable to a cave but even a cave is good enough to get the work done. If you think along those lines, a home isn't such a bad place to work at all!
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