Remote workers blame themselves first

“I’m such a slacker!”, “What’s wrong with me?”, “I always procrastinate; I hate it” are common thoughts when a person lacks motivation. When one’s motivation has dropped so low it takes “a week to do a day’s work” (Fried, pg. 222), the common response is to blame ones' self for the problem. Other factors may be overlooked when one’s focus doesn’t leave their lack of motivation. Two common factors in a lack of motivation are:

  1. The work isn’t defined. When the next step to accomplish is murky, or when the task seems to be no more than busy work, motivation is nearly impossible to find. Clarify what needs to be done and/or why it needs to be done and motivation will return

  2. The people are disruptive. There’s no solution to motivation when one dreads working with the toxic teammate. Micro-management, regular complaints, blame-shifting, and similar behaviors will sap the motivation of all teammates who work with this individual. The solution is to remove the person or change the culture.

Remote work and entrepreneurship share many similarities (as does online schoolwork) when it comes to motivation. Stripped of motivation supports like the pressure of constant supervision, validation from nearby workers, and more, the remote worker/classmate/entrepreneur has only their intrinsic motivation to work with. From the perspective of a manager, “when you can’t see someone all day long, the only thing you have to evaluate is the work” (Fried, pg. 106). If the task’s fuzzy, pointless, or for and with jerks, the impact of these detractors becomes obvious - little to no work is accomplished.

I’m slowly acclimating my manager (Relativity) to the idea of remote work, and have made it my mission to overcome all the common obstacles. Of all the obstacles; however, I’ve found motivation is the biggest. Whether I’m writing this post, drafting an email to a client, or drawing a business model, it’s my responsibility to find and maintain the motivation to continue. But I spend hours in depressed frustration at my procrastination and slacker-ness when the root cause is often a lack of clarity or purpose.

For example, I have a number of projects in-process at work right now. Last week I was beating myself up for making so little progress on any of them, and questioning whether I was up to the task, or a hopeless slacker. After two hours talking about it with Amie, I discovered I had no idea whether I was responsibile to manage these projects to completion or not. I had finished the first task quickly and, unsure whether I was expected to drive the project forward, couldn’t tell whether my work was complete. A fifteen minute conversation with Mark my manager confirmed the start was all I was responsible for and miraculously, motivation returned.

Therefore I’d like to skip the hours of depressed frustration and move faster towards identifying the other factors that sap my motivation, especially unclear expectations and tasks.

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