USELESS at working from home - please help me!

[frazzledgirl]

I was FT before having DS (now 16 months), in a job I really love (internal comms).

Have been back since April. Very very lucky that lovely boss lets me work from home 3 days a week. DS is in nursery in the mornings, I log on at 6am-ish so I can complete my hours fairly early and have time with him in the afternoons.

But I am rubbish at working from home! Doesn't help that I don't really have enough to do, but I waste vast amounts of time on the net (esp Mumsnet ).

Work is getting done, but I am unmotivated and worried about getting sloppy, house is a tip and I am feeling dangerously close to getting depressed again.

Have asked for some more challenging work and am lining up some work experience in a different area, but I think some techniques for home and a better attitude would help.

I have a great deal here - please help me make it work.

I'm going to pinch hatwoman's oven timer tip.

Set your oven timer for 50 minutes. WORK for 50 minutes. Timer goes off, you have to get up to switch it off (this is why you don't use clock on computer), then stretch legs, make cup of tea, MN, put washing on or whatever. Then do another 50 minutes.

If part of your working from home also includes housework, as mine does, you could do the same thing, for maybe 30 minutes at a time or a day.

Another good tip is make a list of what needs to be achieved that day/that week. Do the hardest thing first. Otherwise you end up doing all the easy little things to avoid the hard stuff and then it's looming and delayed. Get it over first, whatever the trickiest thing it, you'll feel you've accomplished something, and will be more motivated as a result.

If you've not got enough work to do at the moment, you can still set yourself some objectives, could be some of those long-term wouldn't-it-be-nice-if ones, like sorting out information into a more useful database, having a clear out of paperwork, reviewing templates and pro-formas, updating your skills and knowledge of subject area, or whatever is relevant for you.

Something else I like is - ask yourself what the current situation is, what you would like it to be and what actions you need to take or things you can do to achieve that situation. That can apply to anything, small or big, life situation, relationships, state of house, or work things.

I work from home partly and have the same problem as you except when I am busy then there is no problem.
You are probably getting more done than you think - lots of time is wasted in the office. So you are allowed a bit of slack!

Try writing a list of what you do in a day at home, and compare it to a dayin the office (I have to do a timesheet so clients can be billed - this focusses the mind wonderfully!). You might be surprised.

God i loathe working from home. I sympathise. Hated it.

You could get radical and get a 'netnanny' or similar for your computer? One that allows you to whitelist sites you can visit (thereby not cutting you off from work!) but not allowing any fun stuff?

For years I have had to eliminate all games, even crappy ones like Minesweeper, from my computers, to prevent stupid stupid procrastination and timewasting. Nothing makes you feel worse, and it's more addictive than crack. Once you find you are getting a decent amount of work in, you could feel better.

Set a date when you go to 2 days only at home? That might work better. Sometimes a small adjustment makes a disproportionate difference.

Do you need to be online to do your work? If not, the best suggestion I can give you is to go off line. This will instantly prevent you from going on MN and will improve your productivity enormously.

Have a set space where you do your work i.e. set up a home office, otherwise you will constantly be distracted by other stuff.

Next, I would try writing yourself a timetable (a bit like revision timetables that we were encouraged to create for our school exams) and break the day up so that you schedule in an hour or two's work, then a coffee break, then maybe hoover or put on a wash load, then a couple more hours work etc.

At the end of the day, write a review of what you have achieved - this will frequently be more than you realised or than you felt you had managed, and give yourself a pat on the back!

Good luck - now, get off MN!!

Thank you all for the tips and sympathy. So glad I'm not the only one who feels this way - I think for me, I'd actually rather have one or at most two days at home, but I know this is best for DS so I need to make it work for the time being.

I bought a timer (oven doesn't have one) and have done three cycles of 50 minutes' work. Will admit I cheated a bit on the non-work periods, but hey it's early days.

So I now also have a sparkly clean kitchen and sink (went on to FLY lady too), a clean toilet and a batch of carrot-raisin muffins.

I need to be online sometimes for work, and it's a work computer so can't install nanny software so think I will just have to be vigilant. You're so right - web stuff and games are addictive and leave you feeling crap and worthless.

So, constructive day and feeling much much better.

Again, thank you. Hopefully this is the start of something much better.