I have been working for 6 years and I still have the same habit I had as college student. Meaning I have no sense of time. I slack off of work when I feel like it but then I take tons of work home. Sometimes I just slack off. There is very few days when I worked full 8 hrs but there has been plenty of days when I stayed in work for 10-11hrs because earlier during the day I spend hours wasting time. This is because I didn’t have value for time & I never had to pay for it. Because when deadline came, I was able to stay up late at night finishing the work. This has become a habit of mine & luckily in 6 years I have not gotten in trouble for it. But now life is evolving, I am getting married, I have more family responsibility & I am tired of myself but I can’t stop it. My biggest time waster was facebook & reading message board. I have stopped those and lost interest in reading other peoples comment. But there are days (often, few times a week) when I just want to slack off. So I watch youtube, surf ebay, read random topic not work related. Next thing I know, 3 hrs just passed sometimes even more. How do I stop this stupid habit of mine & do what I am supposed to do here. I know we need time off and relax time but I overdo it. Now my managements are asking questions what do I do? Why r my projects late? The difference between now and before is, I have gotten few promotions & my projects do not have hard deadline like my old projects did. So I don’t do the all-nighter to meet a deadline it just hangs in there until I get in trouble. ARRRRRGGGG soo mad at myself. How did you manage to stop wasting time? I wonder if I wasted more time at home maybe i won't feel the need to slack off at work as much?
Why don't you set an alarm on your computer or phone for say 10 mins, when you start to surf? And get back to work after that...
My suggestions: 1)Go real early like 7 or 7:30 am and keep a goal that you will not open anything other than work before lunch. Have breakfast at desk and by lunch time you would have finished majority of the work. I am not a morning person but i am very efficient in the mornings hence this suggestion. 2)Do not have heavy lunches but eat regularly. feeling lethargic leads to these distractions. 3)very important thing -To do lists. Take 5 minutes at the beginning of the day and write down your tasks for the day and till 75% is done do not allow any distractions 4)stop carrying work home and doing it at weekends. Do it for one week and you will get the guilty conscience that you are not working for what you are being paid. Right now probably you feel that you are overworking because of the slacking and catching up in your actual free time. 5)Breaks are necessary for some people esp. if there is no work pressure. The point is to keep it short. do not have a lunch break if you are in the flow but take two 15-20min breaks later on when you feel bogged down...now what to do in these breaks -1st break = networking, happenings in your department, latest developments in your area of expertise, company developments, self-growth activities etc 2nd break = personal work like making to do lists for a party, walk around the company block - breathe some fresh air, having tea and other snacks, socialize, make calls to friends/colleagues, catch up on birthday wishes, personal email replies->Strictly personal and stress buster Do not worry about it.if you are the one of those people who work great under pressure you will be able to handle fine after marriage and kids because you will be under pressure perpetually. All of the above may not work for youideasmiley but hopefully they will give you an idea about being efficient. If you want to add on work so that you can be efficient you can always involve yourself in company activities...I am 100% sure your employer will appreciate your work more if you ask for work rather than wait for it to come to you....
Thanks for the response. I tried the setting alarm for a set time but i don't have the discipline /motivation to follow the alarm rule. Best time break I found were the once away from my computer but then it doesn't feel like a break unless I am wasting some time surfing net (probably because i don't do much of that at home) I like the company i work for. I like my career field & some part of the work. and I really like the larger group i am part of. But I don't like my current role. My job has changed every year for past 5 years due to re-organization. First 3 changes were necessary (as in my job was moving to different state and I can't move) so I was greatful to find something. But the last two positions have been very different from my initial job & I am tired of the changes. Now i start a job with the mentality "give it a year and it will change". So it is a combintation of lot of things: 1) Not big fan of current position & don't believe I will be in it long enough to accomplish anything 2) Due to lack of hard deadline, i don't feel the urgency in doing anything. hence to-do list don't work because i don't feel the need to finish everything on the list i will try the go early method. I am not a morning person and I don't go into work until 9 but I have coworkers who come in at 6.
Why do all the bad days come at once? I have been skating along fine for almost 2 years and all of sudden Day1 - I hear from colleauges my manager has taken another job. Now we are not sure if our job will be impacted as she fought very hard to keep our group. Our group consist of 3 people including her. Day 2 - In a friendly conversation with my old boss, he tells me "get out of the group you are in, its in trouble" Day 3 - In conversation with another ex manager of mine, who i like very much and he thinks highly of me, he informs me that lot of people have been questioning my work. That many people are not happy. This is the first time I heard it althought i knew for while that I am slacking off this news will be coming. I thought i will get my act together before others see it Day 4 - With a new motivation to get things started, i set up a project kick off meeting. Not all the attende showed up on time which lead the meeting to go over by half hour. Some of the attendee were upset and made it seem it was my fault for not being prepared. I should have managed it better This reminds me of 2 years ago when I was facing lot of new things & for few weeks everything i did seemed like a mess. But eventually I made it thru and came on top. I know i will do it again but will be feeling lot of "red" face moment in coming days. ARGGG
schedule time for all of the surfing etc at night after you go home. delete facebook account OR ask your family member to change password and not tell you(FB is highly over rated anyway) These habits are not only harmful for your professional life, but also personal life, specially since you are getting married soon. Snap out of it NOW or you will be inviting trouble. You can do it. Just make up your mind
Kera, Thank you for putting this in.. I have noticed I'm doing what you are doing. I been spending whole lotta time on FB and in IL . Few weeks ago, i have deactivated my FB. But I'm finding it hard to stay away from IL. Thanks again.
