Staying focused while working from home can be a challenge at the best of times. But when the elusive British sun pokes out from behind the clouds, the temptation to stop what you're doing and head outdoors can be difficult to resist.
A study by Harvard researchers showed that personal productivity dips when the sun shines because our minds wander to all the fun things we could do outside instead of working.
But you don't need to go as far as drawing all the curtains and sitting in a darkened room to stay focused. There are a variety of simple ways to tackle the summer productivity slide.
Use the weather to your advantage
Nobody can control the weather, but working from home often means you have more control over how you structure your day.
Research by Jooa Julia Lee, of Harvard University, suggests that we should be more savvy about matching the kinds of tasks we perform to the weather outside. Her study shows that when the sun is shining, people tend to struggle at repetitive tasks that demand high concentration and accuracy.
By analysing data on Japanese bank workers and through experiments in the lab, she showed a dip in productivity on good weather days caused by distracting thoughts of outdoor activities. "You can be very smart about that, especially if you are working at home," she said. "If you know that you are going to be very distracted by the weather being really nice then you may want to schedule all the repetitive and boring administrative tasks for the day you have bad weather."
While this gives a perfect excuse to put off tackling the accounts until the sun goes in, the opposite may be true for more creative tasks. A spot of sunshine brings with it the feel-good factor, creating the right conditions for jobs requiring a more creative frame of mind.
"There is research on how positive affect allows you to have more flexible thinking," said Lee.
"It broadens your cognitive flexibility so that may spark more creativity."
Remove yourself from temptation
Another way to beat the productivity dip is to distance yourself from the temptation to decamp to a deckchair in the back garden. A co-working space offers a change of scenery where you can shake off the many distractions of working from home.
Matt Cockayne, managing director of the software firm Zucchi and founder of the co-working space The Assembly in Manchester, believes that many people choose this kind of environment as it helps them to focus better.
"It's too easy to take the blinkers off at home," he said. "Here you don't have the other distractions such as the sofa, your TV, your garden, that case of beer in the fridge. It minimises the amount of additional distractions that make sunning yourself in the garden all too tempting."
Summertime anti-procrastination strategies
Banishing temptation is one of the most obvious ways to tackle sunshine-induced procrastination.
But there are plenty of other ways to fight the urge to take time out when you should be working, according to Professor Tim Pychyl, author of the book Solving The Procrastination Puzzle.
People who have low "frustration tolerance" – meaning they don't react well to life's little inconveniences such as the sun shining when there is a report to finish – are more likely to procrastinate.
If you know you have this trait, the first step is to stop feeling sorry for yourself and recognise when you are making excuses for putting off tasks. Another technique is to indulge in a bit of time travel and make friends with your future self – the "you" of two weeks, two months or two years' time who will reap the consequences of your present actions.
"Our brain processes information about present self differently than it processes information about future self," said Pychyl. "It processes information about future self more like a stranger. We don't care so much about future self."
So stop mistreating your poor old future self, the one who will benefit far more from having that report written than having spent a day reading magazines in the park. "It's tough when you have no external structure, so you really have to rely on self-regulation," Pychyl added. "Procrastination is self-regulation failure – it's very much related to frustration intolerance and present self trumping future self."
But don't sweat it if you can afford to take time out. One of the joys of working from home means that you can often be flexible about when and how you work. It's important not to confuse procrastination with a realistic assessment that you can actually spare a bit of time to enjoy the sunshine.
"Delay is a normal, everyday part of life – it's part of setting priorities," said Pychyl, who emphasises that although all procrastination is delay, not all delay is procrastination. "If you're a person who makes their own schedule, you have to own that distinction otherwise you might always be burdened with guilt – and that is a useless emotion."
If you decide you have enough leeway to take a bit of time out, don't be too hard on yourself about it. "The absolute worst thing you can do is have that negative self-talk join you on your day off because now you're not enjoying yourself," he said.
Take stock while the sun shines
It may be that you don't actually have much choice about taking time out during the summer as many businesses experience a fall in trade at this time of year.
But this lull creates opportunities. It's an ideal time to engage in long-term planning or to make use of the sunshine feel-good factor to fuel creative thinking around new product or service ideas. And with the help of a laptop and an antiglare screen, what better place to do it than in the sunshine in the back garden?
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