Procrastination Ends Now! OK, Maybe Tomorrow

Re working from home: we've heard accounts from people who extol WFH virtues--they're no longer wasting hours commuting--but a significant number, maybe a majority, are less productive: [bold added]

The pandemic has brought us to peak procrastination. Turns out your office—in addition to being in plain sight of your boss—came with environmental cues that reminded you that you had to, you know, work. Without the hum of the industrial printer and the sight of colleagues marching off to the conference room, we all tend toward aimlessness....

Our [home] workspace was thrown together haphazardly in March and never rectified. Kids, pets and neighbors distract us. Our homes are filled with things we like to do. More than a third of telecommuters in a survey of 10,332 adults by Pew Research Center in October said it’s been difficult for them to feel motivated to do their work.

(Image from procrastination.com)

At the office people watch each other (not) working and are compelled by their boss and social pressure to limit their time goofing off. It's like group exercise, where potential embarrassment makes the recalcitrant continue past the point where they would have quit on their own.

Your humble blogger, who left the office environment over 10 years ago, has had to battle tempting distractions ever since. I'm far less efficient than I imagined I would be. If I don't feel like pulling weeds, clearing the office clutter, or repainting that scratched door, so what? I can't fire myself.

Three years ago I dispensed with the dreaded to-do list since almost all of the tasks assigned to "today" were being rolled forward to tomorrow.

In January I brought the to-do list back. An open calendar was wonderful to experience, but like sheltering-in-place, the real danger is I'll get used to it.