How to cultivate the self-discipline necessary to succeed at working from home

Unless you work for a company that spies on its remote employees, it can feel like there’s little to no accountability when you work from home. Not only that, but you’re immersed in an environment that has been deliberately set up to support life outside of work. There are beds in this environment, and couches, perhaps gaming consoles and televisions too. The snacks in the kitchen weren’t purchased by an office manager; they were purchased by you or someone in your household who knows what you like. There may be people or pets that you love living there. All of this can make getting work done at home more difficult than it has to be.

But that sense of low accountability is just an illusion, and everything else can be managed with discipline.

The low-accountability illusion

The fact that your manager can physically see you working at the office is not what makes you accountable; it’s just a reminder of that accountability. The same is true of coworkers and office equipment and conference rooms and so on. None of these things constitute accountability—you still have to answer for your output—they just remind you of it. When you work from home, you have to do the reminding. But then again, working from home means you’re free to remind yourself in any way you like, so get creative. Experiment.

Some ideas:

Create a WFH uniform you like
Commute (sort of)
Take stock and evaluate your progress regularly

Doing any of those can help remind you of your accountability, but it will also help cultivate the discipline needed to accomplish the things for which you’re accountable. In other words, you’re reminding yourself that you’ve got responsibilities while also building the discipline to meet them. Read on for other ways to build that discipline.

9 ways to boost WFH discipline

In my experience, there are three primary hot spots, three areas that tend to present problems for remote workers who are struggling to get their work done at home: starting the workday, sustaining momentum amid distractions, and feeling like your efforts matter. The first two require self-discipline, and the third impacts some people’s capacity for it.

If just getting started is a problem:

Control your bedtime more than your rise time.
When I started doing this, I was able to stop using an alarm altogether. As long as I’m headed off to sleep a minimum of eight hours before I need to get up, I wake up naturally and at least refreshed enough to start my workday without a struggle.
Commit to taking no breaks for the first 2 hours.
If it’s not oversleeping that keeps you from getting started but a lack of interest or even actual dread, first of all, no judgment. Life stressors, bad bosses, and toxic workplace cultures can all turn a job into drudgery. Please do what you can to alleviate what’s killing your vibe—everyone deserves work they enjoy—but in the meantime, set a timer for two hours at the start of your workday and work until it goes off. Then take a break if you want.
Use a startup ritual.
Sometimes all you need is an onramp.

If sustaining momentum is a problem:

Do the hardest task first.
My coworker explains this one here.
Break work down into smaller pieces.
I wrote an entire (short) chapter of an entire (short) book about this. It’s important and can make a huge difference not just in your ability to get work done at home but also in the quality of the work you do. I recommend coupling task management software (e.g., Asana, Todoist) with day planning to help you focus on one small piece at a time.
Try the Pomodoro technique.
This might be especially useful if you’re a perfectionist.

If seeing your impact/value is a problem:

Read Deep Work, by Cal Newport.
Your impact is in the work that you do, not your attendance at an office. Newport’s book can help you shift your sense of professional value from dependence on your presence to dependence on your contributions.
Ask your manager to clarify how your work supports business initiatives.
If it’s not clear to you what your contributions do for the team, by all means ask. Understanding your potential impact—positive and negative—on your teammates can be a powerful motivator.
Check in with teammates regularly.
When you have downtime, ask how you can help. If you have an idea you think might be useful, share it. Connect through the work, and it’ll be easier to see the value of yours.

Fake it to make it

You know the phrase, “Fake it til you make it”? Self-discipline is what faking it looks like. It’s how you fake whatever it is you want to make. The funny thing about that is that self-discipline itself can be a form of fakery. If, for example, as a result of reading this blog post, you decide to create and use a startup ritual even though you’d rather not have to go to the trouble, you are going against your own preferences, faking that your startup ritual is actually what you want to be doing. That’s discipline. Even when you’re faking it, in other words, it’s still real discipline. And over time you may find that while there will always be times that you have to fake it, more often than not you don’t.

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