The truth about parents who want to work-from-home but just can't

How procrastination could work for parents who want to work-from-home

A few days ago, I got a message from a mom asking how to create a website. DMs about creating a website and getting home-based jobs aren’t new to me. I’ve been receiving questions about online jobs, building a website, and so on since I started blogging full-time. And the funny thing is, if you happen to be part of any work-from-home groups, parents would have the same question.

How do I get started working-from-home?

How po?

PMd you?

The curiosity and intentions to work-from-home or to build a website is there. But the action to carry out the first, second or the third step to accomplish something is often buried by the parental duties. Believe it or not, the most common response after I sent the link to where they should start would be:

“Hindi pa tulog si LO. Baka mamaya na lang po.”

From answering a fellow parent’s question and getting the “I’ll do it later-ish” reply, I can assume how hard it is for other parents to accomplish anything that is outside their parental duties.

I understand 100%! But, I feel like they are losing a lot of opportunities to earn, to create something and to grow their career while they’re raising their kids. If only these parents know that there are ways to get things started with or without a kid. It will happen to them.

Is it procrastination? Is it the lack of effective time management? Or maybe it’s a case of managing the household better?

Let’s try to debunk the mystery! I want to know why parents tend to put off work-related tasks in favour of parental duties. As I search for answers, I came across an article from The New York Times. According to a psychology professor from the University of Sheffield, Dr Fuschia Sirois, people engage in procrastination because of their inability to manage negative moods around a task. Another psychology professor supported this statement by saying procrastination is an emotion regulation problem and not a time management issue.

Read the full article here.

But, what are the challenging emotions and negative moods that ignites procrastination to parents?

The New York Times states that procrastination isn’t exactly a time management problem. But, instead, procrastination is more of a challenge to regulate negative emotions on a given task. Some tasks may provide us with a feeling of boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, self-doubt and even fear. Say, for example; it is easier for me to blog instead of cleaning our guinea pig Mimo’s cage. The latter takes about 15 minutes or less as opposed to writing a blog which could bring about an hour or two. But writing a blog gives a gratifying feeling of accomplishing something for myself. Doing something for my website reassures my progress from work instead of completing tasks that have minimal impact. Ultimately, by understanding how we feel about a particular task would reveal as to why we procrastinate.

Which brings us the two types of procrastination, the active and passive

An article from thepsychologist.bps.org.uk pointed the two types of procrastination to get a better understanding of the reason why people tend to put off work until later. The passive procrastinators appear to self-doubt, which later on causes depression. On the other hand, active procrastinators systematically choose the task to work on based on its importance. The pressures from the multiple tasks are seen as a challenge and motivation to meet deadlines. So, which procrastinator are you? Do you tend to succumb from your fear of failure, or do you see your tasks as challenges to overcome?

How can we shift from passive to active procrastination?

We could start by identifying the tasks that matter to us and putting a deadline to those goals. By doing so, we are shifting from our tendencies to avoid the tasks to facing our challenges. For instance, ask yourself how crucial it is for you to get an online job from home. Are you running out of funds, or are you preparing for long-term financial needs? If so, then you must allow several hours to learn about working-from-home or how to put up a website. It would mean that you need to be strategic in diving your time between caring for the kids and managing the household. Get extra help from family or hire someone to do the time-consuming chores at home. Before you know it, you will have more time to work on your work-from-home goals.