St Monday's the weekend to me

[radegund]

Monday lethargy has once more struck. (It doesn't help that the heating still isn't on: the office is distinctly chilly.)

How do you make yourself work when you don't feel like it?

Comments

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Sheer bloodymindedness, usually.

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

I too have wrestled with this problem many a time; it doesn't help to know that in fact motivation doesn't preceed work, but is a consequence of it, which is why momentum is so important and why I'm loath to stop when I have it. I tend to work in batch mode as a result - i.e. a certain amount of futzing around, followed by a long stretch of continuous effort. However, of course deadlines often screw with that ideal pace. When I just have to get stuff done but don't feel like it, the answer usually depends on the type of work itself; if I'm writing and I get bogged down, I'll play with a knick-knack from my geeksphere, and usually after a few moments my subconcious will break in with a solution, which will normally carry me for a while. For regular office drudgery, music helps; something lively to wake me up initially, followed by something instrumental or ambient so as to allow me to concentrate. For editing, the Walk-And-Scratch does wonders; I have a clipboard where I stick a printout of the latest manuscript draft. I then walk slow laps around the office, reading and stopping to scratch in correx as I go. The activity helps keep you from feeling like a big pudding and it's hard to be distracted by email or the telephone when you're away from your desk.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

You're so right about motivation being a consequence of work! It's a momentum thing. Some Mondays I hit the ground running; others I can't seem to get the hang of at all. The first kind tend to spell a productive week...

I like your suggestions - particularly "Walk-and-Scratch" (which I must bear in mind for when I'm editing my own stuff) - but unfortunately they wouldn't really work in my office. I share a medium-sized room with two others; we never play music, and pacing would be pretty distracting.

I need to develop a suite of strategies for days like this. Trouble is, on days like this I couldn't be arsed thinking about long-term strategies, and on the other kind it doesn't occur to me! :-)

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

I share a medium-sized room with two others; we never play music, and pacing would be pretty distracting.

Can you stroll the internal connecting corridors of your building? If it's like most office buildings, there's hardly anyone in those corridors for most of the day. Part of your office rent pays for them too -- who's to say you can't stroll along them?

[radegund.livejournal.com]

We have landings, really, rather than corridors (this is an eighteenth-century house), so other than in the basement there's nothing really long enough. Pacing just outside my office door (i.e. outside the tea-room, the gents' loo and the office of the head of Administration) would be an invitation for funny looks and slanted questions; next floor down I'd be outside the Boss-Man's office; and after that we're getting into publicly accessible territory.

I could try the basement, I suppose. Or the stairwell. It would be unheard of, though: I'd be the talk of the tea-room... :-)

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I suggest trying to see if you could get roof access, except standing on an Irish roof in October is not a recipe for a long and healthy life... How about wireless headphones for music then? That's what I use here as I'm in a cubicle on the main editor's row, so it can get noisy with conversations, etc.[*] Wireless is great, because it means I can reach for a file at the back of my cabinet with worrying that my head is going to be wrenched backwards by a headphones cord.

[*]When I'm really behind the 8-ball, I stretch a rope made from rubber bands across the top of my cubicle entrance from which I hang a DO NOT DISTURB! type sign. One day I'll follow through on my threat to rig up a bead curtain...

[radegund.livejournal.com]

Um, pitched roof :-)

Actually, I don't listen to music while I'm doing verbal work. Our office is usually cloaked in a rich, industrious silence, broken only by the hum of our CPUs, the ticking of the clock, the soft rattle of keyboards and the rustle of dictionary pages.

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

Good Lord, it sounds like you work on the set of Ball of Fire! You're in charge now -- mix it up a little; Hawaiian Shirt Day, entertain the troops a liitle, or send out for the motivation fairy... :)

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

I find it very tough. I was relieved when starting my new job to discover that I have no internet with which to procrastinate, but instead, I find myself doing absurd, pointless things to avoid work, like drawing pictures of dragons in MS Paint, and things like that.

I thought I was a procrastinator, but...

[stephencass.livejournal.com]

Teach me, Obi-Wan.

Re: I thought I was a procrastinator, but...

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

It's one of my few indubitable talents, sadly.

[ailbhe]

I tend to say "OK, fuck it, by (now + 30 minutes) I will have done foo," and do that, and then stop and do something else - make a cup of tea or something. I repeat this until I am on a roll and able to just do the damn thing. I don't let myself futz around for that 30 minutes, either.

It means being one's own parent and setting small, achievable goals, just as though one is about 2 years old, but it used to work for me.

A.

[radegund.livejournal.com]

See, that's impressive.

I can do it too, but only very occasionally, and there has to be a vestigial motivation to get the job done in the first place. I don't find unvaried routine particularly motivating, which I think is part of the problem. I've said it before: I'm naturally a phasey-peaky-troughy person, and this sustained carry-on is hard.

[ailbhe]

My ability to make myself work when there's nothing I'd like less is one reason I had to quit my job from stress. I am incapable of living with the guilt of doing a bad job, or doing nothing at work, and that makes me do things even when I hate them.

I stand by the stopping after 30 minutes thing, though, even for sane people. It goes with the 20 minutes housework rule. Small goals.

Neither one is working now, when I ought to make myself lunch (but I feel too sick!) and tidy the house a bit (but I want to be asleeeep!).

A.