Stop Whining & Get To Work
I love the work I do every day. Heck, I don’t think I could work 16 hours a day if I didn’t love what I do.
But as with everything in life, there are times that I would rather be doing something else, especially on the weekends. Most weekends I can take off, but then there are weekends like this past one, where I had nine mockups to code, three sites with revisions, a jQuery slider to troubleshoot, an article to write and a premium freelance package to review.
Weekends like that mean it’s impossible to take off and while *I* know this, I’ll still stamp my feet, pout and whine about it for a good while, instead of just getting to work right away and finishing it.
Whiner Workers
What is it about unpleasant work that can make a grown adult visit their toddler days? It seems to be psychological that we do to ourselves: by dreading the upcoming work, we make the work unpleasant, which makes us dread it again in the future, which makes it unpleasant work again; and there the cycle continues.
It’s tough to get work started, especially when you’re faced with a seemingly impossible amount of work due in a short period of time. What I’ve found though, is that we also tend to exaggerate the time we think it will take to complete when we don’t want to do it, which makes it even harder to start.
Start With A Plan
It’s easier to get started if you have a schedule and a to-do list planned out. Turn your large projects into smaller steps and it suddenly becomes easier to check them off.
I like to use iCal to schedule out my work versus using a project management app. Project management apps, while good for teams of workers, can be overkill for a single freelancer, and make it seem like there’s more work than it really is.
Take Lots of Breaks
Instead of working the whole day for eight or more hours straight, take a lot more breaks than you’d normally would if it was a regular working day.
For example, finish coding one mockup and then go relax and watch an episode of your favorite TV show. Not only does this reward you for getting to work, it also makes you more likely to want to come back and finish – as you don’t feel like you’ve had to give up the whole day for work. Plus, you’ll often find yourself thinking about the work and wanting to return to it during your break.
Do The Fun Stuff First
If you have something fun planned for that weekend, go ahead and do it first. If you try to work first, you’ll end up being distracted and slowed down, due to thinking about all the fun stuff you have planned to do.
That being said, don’t use the fun stuff as an excuse to put off work either. If you go out in the morning, realize you’ll need to be back in the office by mid-afternoon to get your work finished. It’s ok to do the fun stuff first as long as your don’t procrastinate on the important stuff.
Just Get Started
The hardest part of doing an unpleasant project is getting started. Once you get started it becomes easier to move on the the next task, and the next, and then all of a sudden, you’ve realized you’re finished.
Your Tips
What are some ways you make yourself get to work when you don’t want to?
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?
This helps explain your productivity level.
And I think you’ve hit on a lesson that is very hard to learn, but essential for success in pretty much any industry. Get yourself organized enough to streamline your own processes, but don’t push it to the point that the organization itself becomes a chore.
Haha sometimes I don’t feel very productive at all. I do have my days where I decide to just forgo all work and go shopping
Organization is so critical and you’ve made that clear in this article. It’s amazing how NOT terrible a project really is once you get started too. There are things I may dread but once I buckle down and do it, I realize that it really wasn’t that bad.
Great article.
Thanks for sharing!
I agree. On days I don’t want to work, the projects seem like they’ll take forever to complete, but as soon as I get started, they normally get finished quickly.
When I work I need to have my to-do list written on a paper. With productivity apps I always end up browsing the web (T.T). And drinking water is at least for me a great way to schedule my breaks. Thank you
Yea productivity apps normally slow my productivity down trying to manage them. I don’t normally have a big to-do list besides listing out what projects I’m working on that day and iCal works great for that.
Great tips. I use the take a break one a lot, watching a episode of a TV show as a reward is a very good way to think you’re not only working. Anyway I’m mostly more than happy when I can only focus on work and look at the clock 10 hours later and telling myself “wow, I worked that much and didn’t see it happen, awesome !”
One more thing : take a 15 minutes walk helps you clear your mind, keeps you focus, in health and wakes you up after a couple of hours spend in front of your computer screen.
Haha mind you I *only* watch tv during the weekends…during the week I try to stick to normal hours, although I often find myself taking a day off every once in awhile.
Are you seriously telling us that you coded websites in a weekend?
If you did, can I have what you’re having?
Not just one….two sites :/
Sorry, I meant 9 websites.
Amy, could you please address in one of your future posts how you and several of your readers face the following situation:
you present your design, web 2.0 compliant, xhtml + css, all nice, all good, but then the client starts making changes based on his/her preconceptions or his/her idea of what looks good, what is beautiful and, more often than not, trying to compete directly with the website of his closest rival which sometimes starts a process of copy/paste, of imitation that I always find tasteless and tacky, but I have had to deal with it several times.
I have tried to maintain control of this aspect, but I wonder if I am being sometimes too soft and sometimes too harsh when explaining myself, or if I come across was lazy not wanting to make the changes that are requested (if changes are valid and valid, of course I provide them).
The Whining subject of this article made me think that this could be an interesting follow-up piece: how much do you zealosly (or jealously) keep in control of your work or how easly do you reliquish from it.
Hope you can provide some insight and canvas for several to share their opinions.
Thank you!
My name is Amber not, Amy. Not sure why that is a common mistake :/
Anyways, you need to be confident in your work when you present it to a client. If a client wants to make a change, think about it thoroughly before saying no, and if you do say no, back it up with a good reason. I’ve never had a client continue on with something after I’ve told them something like “Splash pages annoy the user and you’ll have a high bounce rate and lose sales” Back up your no with a valid reason, and most clients will listen to you, since they’re paying you to be the expert. Also, don’t say no just because you designed the product and think only you can do the best. If what they’re asking for is reasonable and there’s no justified reason not to do it, then do it.
It’s ok to hold your ground when clients push back. Just make sure you understand what their concerns are and address them logically, otherwise you’ll have a mess and hate working on the particular project when the design starts to fall apart.
Amber, thank you for your insight and reply. I’m sorry, I was not confusing your name, I simply thought that Amy was an appropiate pet name (I hope I’m using the correct definition here) to address you. Won’t happen again.
It’s ok Amy is a completely different name, not a nickname for Amber
It just drives me nuts because it happens quite often 
I was fortunate enough to find work in areas I have loved. But, even so, I’ve worked myself senseless a lot of time. If you dislike the job, find something else. If not, do it and stop whining. The today’s winners are not whiners, are “doers”
I absolutely have to list everything out and make a plan of attack, otherwise I just have trouble finding where to start. Additionally, I have to remove all distractions (email, phone, familiar music, etc.) because it’s just to hard to focus otherwise and I waste copious amounts of time while accomplishing very little.
I find it helpful to either find somewhere insanely quite, or more commonly, somewhere with a lot of indistinguishable background noise. Longer days require large amounts of caffeine… Coffee shops seem to work well.