Declining productivity

I never used to be a remote worker. I worked 5 days per week from an office, surrounded by my colleagues. Then covid hit, and suddenly I was working from home. I didn't mind, but over time I noticed my productivity was declining. I've been monitoring it and doing a lot of thinking about the causes of this, and what I can do about them.

One thing I noticed is really simple. When I'm in the office, if a process is taking a few minutes to run I would typically just sit and wait for it to finish. At home, however, I've noticed I tend to look for something to do with that time. I open a tab to check the news, or see if there's a Stack Overflow question I can quickly answer, or read a tech related article from my Pocket.

I've realised that for me, this is one cause of distraction and lower productivity. Simply sitting and waiting - doing nothing else - has helped me become more productive.

The value of doing nothing

The most obvious benefit is the immediate one - if I don't distract myself, then when the process ends I'm ready to immediately continue with my work. But there is also a longer term benefit.

Sitting and waiting is training me to cope with boredom. I've realised I need to re-learn how to be bored, because boredom is a key part of productivity. If you work on difficult problems there will be times when you get stuck, and while it might sometimes be a fun challenge, at other times it will be boring. In an office environment I instinctively worked through the boredom, but I've discovered that while working remotely this is a skill I need to practice and learn.

Doing nothing while waiting for a process to run has helped me become more productive at home. If you work remotely, have you been surprised by any of the factors which affect your productivity?