Work when you’re motivated

The 9 to 5 slog has become some kind of a socially accepted standard of measurement for when one works and how hard. If you’re at work then you’re at work. If you aren’t at work then you must be bunking out and shirking your duties.

I hate this way of thinking. I hate the pressure imposed upon my day. I’m a contrarian and if I’m told to work between 9 and 5 then I’ll probably end up faffing about until 4:55pm and then try to shove all of my work into the final 5 minutes of my day before clocking out at the all important stroke of 5pm.

Being a self employed entrepreneur has its upside and this must be one of them. I get to work when I want. But unfortunately that societal guilt still finds me and I blame social media. Wherever I look there are people poking their norms into my streams of content.

I am at my most productive at night after dinner. I am focused and I there is nothing distracting me. The people of twitter are silent, my email has stopped buzzing at me, there are no phone calls or text messages and I get time to myself.

Yet for some strange reason I still feel like I should have been working at 11am, or 3pm or 10am or other socially acceptable times. So I spend my days with a knot in my stomach freaking out about the consequences of not working right now. RIGHT NOW.

I’ve made the decision (again) to work when I’m motivated. The key component here is that I love what I do so I am excited to be up late with ideas running through my mind.

Find the time in your day when you are at your most productive and work. Ignore the nine-to-fivers. Damn the naysayers and clients waiting for your response. Put you head down and push on.