This week I suffered from what I’ve come to think of as the WorkFromHome Vacuum. From what I understand, everyone who works from home experiences this from time to time. I used to succumb to it more frequently before I started working on the magazine, and I’ve gotten better at both avoiding it altogether and at cutting it short should I fail to avoid it. But this week I was hit hard.
WorkFromHome Vacuum involves the utter failure to to be productive in any useful way. One of the reasons I stopped experiencing it when I started with the magazine is the sheer amount of work I have to do. Also, I usually need to be in touch with a lot of people. That high level of activity keeps the vacuum at bay.
The Vacuum is different from the everyday temptation to be distracted by home-related things. It’s more dramatic than that, and I have much less control over it.
I was unable to combat the vacuum this week, and I’ve learned over the years that there’s little I can do once it’s settled in. I just need to wait it out till it passes, and I’m sure by next week all will be well.
Still. If I owe you an email, please know I’m on it. I’m sort of banking on the vacuum departing by Monday morning. For now, I’m trying my best to enjoy this gorgeous weekend so I’ll be rested up in time to fire all engines come the workweek.
What challenges do you occasionally face in your work life?
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You know, I don’t work (per se) but my problem for the work I do have to do is overwhelmitis and procrastination. They usually go hand in hand and leave me deflated feeling unproductive and flat like a used beach ball. I hate it when it hits me too, but I can’t wait for it to go away because it would become a permanent citizen of my world and drive me batty. Even playing with yarn doesn’t make the list in my mind go away totally. Hoping you can get back on track next week. ((hugs))
@stacey: Oh, the overwhelm + procrastination loop. It’s no stranger to me! Maybe I’ll use this as motivation to finally finish reading Getting Things Done.
I deal with a weird phenomenon, which might be like the Vacuum you’re talking about, esp. when you distinguish it from garden variety distractibility. I can slide into a very unproductive mode and once I do it’s hard to extricate myself. It’s like an invisible force. When I’m in It, I think, “What’s going on? I’m getting nowhere.” Ojectively it might look on the outside like depression but I don’t feel depressed on the inside. I actually have lots of drive and creative energy and/or frustration on the inside. So I’m thinking about whether the real issue is that there’s this huge gap between my inner and my outer, and to avoid the zombie zone, I need to bridge the two. I could see that being very dynamic. I’ve also wondered if with creative work there are artistically fertile vs rest/replenish rhythms that I’m ignoring and out of sync with.
@vashti: Yes! That’s exactly what I experience. It might look like depression, but it’s not. It’s the symptoms without the cause, if you will. I’ve been *thinking* lots about creative things I want to do, but the inertia is overwhelming. Here’s to busting out of it!
And wouldn’t you think some great coffee would do the trick? Sometimes for me if anything it makes it worse GAH!
I totally agree with Stacey’s “overwhelmitis” and it usually coincides with the the UPS man delivering a huge box of yarn. I get into a quandry, do I finish what I was doing? Do I drop everything and work on what just arrived? Do I hide the box and pretend it didn’t arrive? Do I finish what I was doing while THE BOX stares at me from the corner? Then, I eat a cookie, figure out what’s “due” first and jump in, hooks flashing.
Go, have a great weekend! You totally deserve it!
xoxox
marly
The biggest challenge I face in my work life might have something to do with the air quotes I feel in my fingers as I say “work”. Why the air quotes? There are several reasons, the biggest reason is the projects I currently consider my “work”, the things I hope will eventually earn me pay currently earn no cash**. Indeed, whoever will pay me for these projects doesn’t even know I or these projects exist. Few of my friends even know what I’m working on. I’ve been holding my cards close to my chest while I convince myself it really is time to finally take the leap and develop these projects (notice I won’t even admit to what they are) that have rambled around in my mind for years.
**Actual monetary reward isn’t the issue, perhaps most important in this situation is that there is no audience, no one needing this “work”. It is a vacuum I feel daily and it is only relieved in the moments I am truly working on a project or right after. Thinking about them doesn’t count, after a certain point, I find the thinking sucks any air left in the room…
The vicious circle of being overwhelmed and procrastinating used to plague me. For me, it would start small (a couple of unanswered e-mails, a few undone tasks) and grow into a many-tentacled, smothering beast (sometimes quite quickly). I think dealing with this (and learning how to avoid it as much as possible) is a major part of successfully working from home. I still experience it sometimes, but to a lesser extent. Now that I’m the mother of a small child, I have such limited time in which my physical and mental space are my own, I’m chomping at the bit to work, and so I can usually hit the ground running when I’m able to eek out some time for myself. Even so, I have to keep a well-updated to-do list so I can stay on track and do the most important things first. Otherwise it’s easy to plop down and work on whatever is on my my mind at the moment.
I also identify with what Cecily said. When I’m working on something that isn’t yet earning me pay, I have a difficult time justifying it as actual work. I finally started calling it work out loud, and it’s starting to fit better and feel better.
@Cecily: I definitely hear you on “work”. I think Donna‘s approach—owning it as real work—is one way to feel better about it, and to really commit. I also think ditching the idea of “work” altogether can do wonders. We’ve all grown up surrounded by what it means to be “working” — be it a 9-5 job, an office, a uniform of some sort (even creatives often feel they need to look the part, me included), income, networking, contacts, business cards, a title, a label… — and I wonder if all of those definitions don’t get in the way when the “work” we do is creative and doesn’t fit into the molds we just assume must be filled. Who cares if you’re “working”? If you’re spending your time in a way you find fulfilling and satisfying and you’re content and even excited about the contribution you might make to society, I think you’re accomplishing more than many “working” folks. This might be a generational thing. We need our parents and parental figures to know we’re “working” — that we’re earning a living and supporting our families and that we have health insurance. Of course those things are important, and even required. But it’s also very, very important to *stop* working. It’s important to value the creative pursuits we have when we’re *not* working. And if we decide to take the scary plunge into making those creative pursuits the ones that sustain us full-time, then we should own it. Cecily, when you’re ready, I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. /jumping off soap box now.
[...] So, a bit more on combating the WorkFromHome Vaccuum. [...]