I need to start knuckling down & paying more attention at work. How do I do this ?

[kermitspants]

I WAH everyday. Fairly senior. I feel like I've scrapped through my last few reviews. I need to start producing more, paying more attention & just getting my head down.

How do I do this ?

Im part of a large department. I never listen in whole-of-department meetings. I seem to have somehow lost this skill (menopause?). Anything is more interesting than work whole WAH. I would rather cut the class with a pair of scissors! I can't change jobs, that is not an option.

…. You are highly distracted when you need to do things that don’t interest you, but you can hyperfocus on things that do

this is applicable to practically everyone. The armchair diagnosis of ADHD on MN is ridiculous, especially as this epidemic weirdly coincided with everyone starting to Wfh where they can dick about on the internet during zoom meetings all day. Oh my concentration is shot. I cannot imagine why.

I think I'd go back to the office because if your poor performance hasn't been noticed yet it surely will be soon.

Turn off your wifi when not in meetings, switch it back on every so often to check emails. I feel your pain with department meetings, I find these meetings so tedious. Could you try some active listening and take notes? Even just scribble points to ensure you're not tuning out.

Go in the office.

I disable Internet and apps on my phone and listen to brown noise. Helps me focus and stops me procrastinating by scrolling - ill do it if I go to the toilet or pop the kettle on and lose time.

brown noise focuses my brain and stops me from distracting myself. Spotify has playlists

I have a detailed to do list as well, either than one task per project I break it down into every single step so I can see my progress. It helps.

What? On your own time? 🙄

Can you mentor someone, or take on a student/trainee? Nothing like someone observing what you do (whether directly or just discussing work regularly ) to make you do it properly.

You said you have use of an office but you prefer working from home because it ... allows you to... not work? 😂 and that's exactly what you're saying your problem is.. that you're not working and faffing about with your housework all day long.

So... the solution is simple. Go into the office even though it's more effort and you don't want to- you'll immediately improve at your job. If you want to be better at your job that is. If you don't want to then stay at home.

I'm not judging by the way. I'm on maternity leave right now but I've had periods of varying productivity since covid introduced me to WFH. Long periods I've worked like a machine and long periods I've done the bare minimum because of home/life distractions. But you say you want to do better so .. you just have to take it seriously and not spend your time on non work stuff.

Would you allow someone who's scraped through their last reviews to mentor anyone?

Here are some things that help me:

Putting music on and listening to it through headphones (even though WFH). Something cheerful but backgroundy works best.

Keeping my to do list on an app - rather than pen and paper. That way you can edit things and update deadlines easily without getting disheartened. You can also set it to remind you about tasks at certain times. That gives me a little jolt / wake up call when I get distracted by other things. I use Microsoft "to do" which interacts well with outlook and teams

App blocker on my phone. You can set it to different levels of strictness and only block / allow the apps you want. You can set it on a schedule or just switch it on when you need to get on with things. The one I use is called "stay focused".

I also find I work better if I have someone else in the room. "Body doubling" really works. Could you go into the office two days a week? If you smashed through your work for two days in the office it would make a big difference and you would feel less overwhelmed and disheartened.

Can you take your to do list and workload and give it a reset / refresh somehow? Sometimes those tasks that you've been putting off for a while start to drag you down. You need a way to reframe them. Can you take a week's holiday for and have the upcoming handover as a deadline / incentive to power through for a couple of days? Or are there non-urgent things you can delegate or drop off your list?

I've had issues in the past because I have massive perfectionism and am a total people pleaser who's afraid of failure. It's a really miserable feeling so I massively sympathise. I've used CBT (from books etc) to help break the cycle where I feel like I'm frozen and procrastinating. I have worksheets I refer back to occasionally and they really help.

Have a read about the pomodoro technique - it's a time management tool for focused periods then breaks. Might help you focus on work then do a quick home task etc.

I've found this since returning from maternity leave - it's hard to focus and stay on track, particularly in big meetings. What's working for me:

• Put your phone away and log out of any personal sites then clear your browsing history so you can't log back in. Give your work laptop a clean sweep.
• Be selective about meetings - if you've got a contribution to make, fine, but not if you're going to be room meat. Follow up for the minutes/actions afterwards.
• Set time every week to go through your inbox, work out which are for info (file), which need action (create a task in whatever planner you use), and which you're just cc'd into
• Use a planner - I like Trello - and set deadlines on your tasks
• Time blocking - I use my calendar to set times for working on specific tasks, e.g. report writing
• Pomodoro technique - set a timer so you work on a task for 20 minutes, then have five minutes rest. Build up the work/rest periods as your stamina improves.
• Honesty - when I have meetings with my manager/the teams I'm working with, I say "these are the things on my radar that I'm working on for you, have I missed anything?"

It's an ongoing process, and I'm not there yet, but it's getting better - I feel more like I've got a grip on what I should be doing, and I'm rebuilding my sense of what my job is.

Get back in the office, sounds like your only option. Could you do 3 days in the office and 2 from home? I love the idea of WFH but it would not suit my personality, I’d get NOTHING done and be fired 😂😂

I struggle with focus too, OP. Ignore the arseholes in this thread. Some of it is personality type. Some of it is environment.

I found the Pomodoro technique works well when I really have to focus - google it.

Another thing is to not fight your personality. If you're someone who needs hard deadlines to work (I am), then can you break your work up into smaller deadlines that you focus on to hit? Rather than allowing a whole project to build up.

Re: internet rabbit holes, i'm terrible with this too. What helps is actually noticing when it's happening and forcing myself back to task. It takes a few tries, but it does improve focus. Just acknowledging what's going on rather than pretending it isn't, or that what you're doing is important.

Another thing is that as soon as a question, or issue, arises that you want to look into, write it down and come back to it later at a dedicated "scroll time", rather than google it immediately. When you come back to it half of it is pointless dross that you don't need to do, the rest you can really focus your attention on.

You need to work in the office. Doesn't sound like home is the right environment for you. How old are your children?

Yep, it coincided with the pandemic… have a think about why that could be?

This happened to me after WFH for too long. I got so behind and overwhelmed I ended up quitting my job. My new one is 75% in the office and it's sooo much better for me. I just get on with it. As nice as WFH can be, not everyone can do it long term and remain productive.

Working from home does not work for you or your employers.

Please consider going back to working in the office. At the moment, your work seems to be paying you to deal with household chores, either by you doing them during your working hours, or by you checking lists, planning etc.

I'd say you're not alone in this, well done in having self awareness and for being so honest about it. It's an important first step in fixing the problem.

I took a long time to get into the swing of WFH, now I wouldn't want to go into the more than a day a week.

I try to keep the mornings for getting tasks done and afternoons for meetings when possible.

I have a to do list at the top of my calendar, things that I particularly want to complete that day, might be writing a report or just responding to a more involved email, anything really that's important for that day.

I take regular breaks, we're not monitored, as long as the work is getting done it's very flexible, so if I don't have lots of meetings I'll often start early, sometimes 7:30, focus for maybe an hour and a half, then take a break to make a drink and have breakfast and then go back and have another focused couple of hours before breaking for lunch. I'll have another break mid afternoon and might go for a short walk or potter in the garden for a few minutes to get some air. I find breaking up the day into sections helpful.

I do quick jobs around the house, like popping a load in the washer while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil. I have the odd meeting where I'm just listening and can have my camera off, I will sometimes get a head start on dinner, but only jobs that don't need any concentration like chopping vegetables.

I'm very productive and work quickly and I'm more productive now than in the office with all the distractions and interruptions.

It sounds like you've got the balance wrong OP.

I’m similar, I get really distracted WFH but the lack of distraction from colleagues and no travel time probably means it balances out. I also get distracted in the office too, I find 100% desk work and Teams calls draining. I find it very difficult to take in information from team Teams calls. Pre-pandemic, I used to spend a lot of time travelling between sites and waiting for others doing the same. Now virtual work means that there is a lot more time, but there’s only so much you can do in the work time; I’ve noticed a lot of people sitting near me start to wind down just before 4; this didn’t use to happen before the pandemic, we’d not really look up until at least 5.
The main way I increase productivity at home is to try to think of things in terms of tasks, rather than working hours.

I am exactly the same OP. I find it really difficult to concentrate at home. I get to the end of the day and suddenly realise I have too much to do and too little time!

write a work list. Prioritise. Do the horrid task first.

You need to go into the office.

adhd is more than just getting a bit distracted every now and again.