Driven to distraction

“Working from home will be brilliant. I’ll save all that commuting time and I’ll get so much done without all those workplace distractions” said many a person when they first started to work from home. There is plenty of evidence that the modern workplace is massively unproductive because of distractions. It doesn’t take long, however, to realise that working from home has so many distractions all of its own.

As I was trying to get started today, I had a think about all those little things crying out for my attention before I could get down to work. If you work from home, you’ll probably recognise some of these examples:






1. The washing machine – it’s always crying out to be filled when I pass it. It doesn’t take long to put on a wash, but then there’s the sorting, the hanging out to dry, the putting away. That’s a decent chunk of time there.



















2. The bins – “I’ll just do the recycling before I get started” which is not a bad thing, but all these little jobs add up, you know?




















3. The dog – “Can we go for a walk now, please? It’ll be lots of fun and I’ll love you forever”. I suspect she says that to everyone, but how can you refuse those eyes?



















4. The pigs – I guess not everyone has to worry about feeding farm animals, but it’s one of the things that slowed me down this morning.


















5. The dishwasher – if it’s not one electrical appliance begging to be filled, it’s another demanding to be emptied.

6. The children – well, where do we start on this one? At least there’s some time in the middle of the day when they’re at school. That time is so precious that we need to make the most of it.

Of course, we know we need to “time box” and leave some of these tasks for our non-work time, but it’s so hard when I’m in the house. As I mentioned, distractions aren’t just the preserve of home workers and emails are one of the biggest distractions for any worker, whether at home or in an office. Some companies have adopted the concept of a “Golden Hour” where focussed work is the name of the game (emails off, no online chats, phone calls or meetings). At home the discipline is down to you.

This is one of the key reasons why we love working at OUTWORK. We have chosen spaces that are allow us to concentrate and be productive: still no long commute but also none of those home distractions. You choose your location depending on what tasks you have on – so you jump in to an OUTWORK space when you need to and work from home when that suits the task more. And if you can’t see those cute doggie eyes, you won’t be tempted away from your work quite so easily.