Help me unpick why I can't get down to work

[blanketeer]

I work from home, almost exclusively. I'm constantly battling with my productivity.

I've always struggled with this. Through uni and all the jobs I've ever had, even when I was office based.

It's like I just can't work properly.

I've been able to get away with it somehow, but I just know I could be much more successful if I just tried properly.

Why am I like this ? It's so frustrating.

Can anyone relate or does anyone have words of wisdom ?

Could've written this myself. Although I'm on mat leave at the moment so thank god I don't have to worry about this for another year! I totally understand what you are saying though, I'm the same!

You need a system to try to combat your tendencies to procrastinate.
Start with making a list of things that need to be done this morning. Maybe put short tasks at the top. Split a work tasks into two or three processes and write them on the list separately. Start on the first task, tick it off when done.

See if this simple method makes a difference.

I have started doing morning pages because I feel exactly like you OP - except I'm not working at the moment. I'm finding that if I dump my thoughts on paper, then it calms me enough to focus on the things that I need to do.
I would love to have the concentration skills to focus on office work or studying something new, but I have always ended up doing active (low paid) work, despite having achieved solid results at school.
I am nearly 60, and I think if I was younger I would get an adhd assessment so I could take medication to help me focus. My dd has recently been diagnosed and it's helped her a lot. As it is, I have reasonably good strategies and remain functional most of the time, but it has become hard work and very tiring.
I wish you all the best in getting to the bottom of this 💐

Change location. Go and work in a cafe/library/friend's house/the office once a week and see if that makes a difference. It is too easy when you are at home to get distracted by household tasks that need doing. And maybe put your phone away.

With the arrival of mobile phones we are training our brains to jump from thing to thing every few seconds. We are actively diminishing our attention span and this carries on into other parts of our lives. Put your phone on loud so that you will hear it ring in an emergency, but then put your phone in a different room while you are working.

Or, as someone up thread said, set a timer and allow yourself a 5 minute scroll every 30 minutes or so.

Consistency is a huge issue for me too Op. I can have weeks, sometimes even a month where I'm focussed and then back to square one.
When the kids were tiny and I was a single ft working mum I had to have everything down pat, and do things to schedule as it was all on me. I lived like that for about 5 years-sort of constant 'panic monster' I guess. So I know I *could do it but nowadays there is just no way.

Ah yes, the good old procrastination that comes with ADHD. However, when I hyperfocus, I get loads done and it balances out over the week generally. My manager knows how I work and is happy with it. On the odd day I need to be in the office, it's a distracting and sensory nightmare. I use these days for networking, and again, my manager is fine with this.

My reasonable adjustments are working from home, active (not passive) noise cancelling headphones, schedule my own breaks to coincide with natural pauses in focus and I can take a movement break when I need to.

I've also asked for instructions or queries to be followed up with an email that's bullet pointed and easy to read. If they message me for a2 minute chat, I've asked that they outline what it is prior so I don't catastrophise and think I'm in deep shit out about to get sacked!

Meds help, particularly with anxiety. You'll have a heart trace done before you're prescribed and your BP will be monitored at each psych appointment.

If I have ADHD then it's a new development since age 50...

There are just too many distractions at home. WFH is so hard. I focus brilliantly in the office. Phone is turned off there, btw.

I could have written your OP. For me, I think it’s down to…

• poor executive functioning (am autistic)
• overactive mind
• the inability to function without a scary deadline (I leave everything to the last minute)
• boredom and seeking dopamine elsewhere
• lack of structure (but also a resistance to demands from outside)
• spiralling anxiety in unproductive times due to my inability to focus, leading to beating myself up, leading to fear of being “caught”, leading to poor mental health, leading to even less productivity…

I had to leave office life/stop working in companies (media and tech) for these reasons, even though everyone around me would have said I was really good at my job. I hid it well. I was capable of excelling easily in competitive new roles, got promoted quickly each time, but would burn out repeatedly at the 2-3 year mark, leading to depression and quitting.

I work for myself now in a hands-on creative role, making things rather than staring at a computer. I realised last year I could no longer work from home because the procrastination cycle was becoming extreme again…

Solutions that have (kind of) worked for me:

• I’ve now taken on a dedicated workspace outside of my home.
• I try to structure my week quite strictly - I respond well to routine as long as it comes from me
• I’ve removed digital distractions as far as possible and try to time-box phone use
• Starting is the hardest bit. I need to make starting tasks each day as smooth and painless as possible - any hurdles to overcome before I start mean I just get immediately overwhelmed and avoid it indefinitely, so I spend time at the end of each day setting up/tidying up/quickly planning for the next so I at least know what task 1 is the following morning.

Sorry - bit of an essay there!!

I think if you didn't have access to Google/YouTube/twitter/mn/whatever you would probably be a lot better. All those things are so much easier than doing anything constructive. I don't think we all have ADHD - we all have shortened attention spans due to smartphones.

I have had these issues since secondary school and also at university though.

@blanketeer there are nine steps in this article, perhaps just read one step at a time? 💐

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brentgleeson/2020/08/25/8-powerful-ways-to-cultivate-extreme-self-discipline/?

I’m exactly the same. I was the student at school who never did her homework and left mandatory coursework until the last minute, if I could get away with not doing it I would talk my way out of it 😅 despite my absolute best intentions I’m so consequence driven and just can’t get anything done unless I absolutely have it.

to your earlier point around the ‘fear’ (panic monster!) making sure you’ve got something to say on your EBRs - yes - I totally get what you mean. My role is partly based around supporting bids/tenders which is super fast paced and can be very reactive, unstructured which I do really respond better to, e.g a short sprint and lots of small deadlines with big consequences if they don’t happen!

at work I also do sometimes wonder whether part of the way I’m feeling is partly imposter syndrome!

This is me most of the time.. worryingly!!
I find putting my phone in another room helps. Set a timer for 25 minutes, rest for 5 and then start again.. only work from 11-3 (remotely) it's just about getting focused - easier said than done I know!!

There’s people like you on the thread OP and there is a second type, who developed this later and for whom it’s related to mobile phone use reducing attention spans. In my case, exacerbated again by perimenopause. I literally lost my attention span at work over a period of three months when I was 47. It didn’t start to come back again for another five years.

Phones are a nightmare though. I wish I could enjoy books again.

Maybe you’re just a bit bored? Could a different role be a better fit for you? This one clearly isn’t challenging you much if you’re barely doing anything but no performance issues are being raised.

Or you could try reframing your way of thinking - you do hardly any work and you earn six figures. Rather than anything being “wrong”, it sounds like you’re one of life’s winners!

As humans we’re not really designed to work in isolation for many hours a day in front of a screen so it’s no surprise that a lot of people don’t enjoy it.

Yeah I mean I really hate what I do, on some level.

I do a lot of outreach to people on LinkedIn / email and a lot of sales calls and zoom meetings.

I feel like I work really hard sometimes and stuff doesn't happen and then it looks like I didn't do anything anyway. So sometimes I think, why even bother anyway ?

I would much prefer to be in a managerial role and not being the arsehole who has to do all the dog work. It's also just such a ' begging ' job in a sense. I hate sales sometimes, but it does pay. That's why I do it.

I've always been a bit this way inclined, but my concentration and motivation are hugely worse this days. I do think the contemporary expectations around multi-tasking plus screen use and phones have massively increased the problem for me and many others. Whilst I meet many of the criteria for ADHD, I think the upsurge in diagnoses reflects these contextual changes as much as anything, and I wouldn't apply the label to myself as it feels like it detracts from people with much more severe difficulties. The thought of medication helping is appealing, but I don't fancy using it on a lifelong basis to cope with what I see more as a social problem (for me - it seem very helpful for many).

I largely try to focus on strategies to try to help me overcome my difficult tendencies - with varying degrees of success. There's a very terribly named podcast called 'I'm busy being awesome', which I find annoyingly chipper, but is aimed at people with ADHD and 'ADHD brains' - which I take to mean ADHD type behaviours. It does have a lot of useful tips.

I feel like this and struggle with it all the time. I often have alot of zoom meetings with only half an hour-hour in between and I can never settle to anything in between and feel so unproductive!

I struggle as well, hence keeping this web page open and only just coming back to it 🤦‍♀️