I have been working full time from home for almost 6 years now. It has been a life changing experience that has taught me so much about life, work and people in general. Many are still not used to the idea that people can make a full time living wage working from home. I got my own fair share of dealing with these sort of people, but I think they are now used to the idea. However, from this October, I will also be studying from home alongside working. I decided to go back to university for a completely new degree – Psychology at The Open University. So I will be working and studying from home for the next 3 years at least. Many wonder how I will be staying motivated while I do all these from home. That question promoted this post.
Staying motivated when you work and school from home
Doing anything from home isn’t easy. The home is your safe zone with lots of distractions, so you usually have your guard down. Which is why many struggle to do anything serious from home. While work or study, when you can chill on the sofa watching Netflix, or curl up in bed and just relax. It can be tricky to work or study from home because the home can be too relaxing to get anything done. So the way I look at it is different. I can’t do anything about how relaxing and homely my house is because I need it to be that way to function. Which is why I work on myself rather than worrying about the distractions.
I stay grounded
Me being grounded means I remember the reason why I am working or studying from home, and that reason keeps me focused and motivated. I need to work from home in order to be the kind of mum I want to be for my kids. They are at the stage where I feel I need to be present, which is why working from home works for us. I work while they are in school and I take any free hours I get after they are tucked in bed in the evenings and during the weekends. Since I am going to be studying as well, I will be sharing the free hours between work and study.
My personality helps
With my busy life, I hardly have free time. I do make out time to care for myself because that is really important, but I don’t have as much free time as others because I am juggling a lot. The truth is I am fine with limited free time. I am not much of a social butterfly even before I got married and had kids, so much hasn’t changed in that area. I rather stay at home and watch a movie then go partying for example, and that has always been me. This personality makes it easy for me to work and study at home because I don’t feel isolate, or feel like I am missing out on something.
At the end of the day, it all depends on you and what what you want out of life. It also depends on your passions and relentless you are in pursuit of them. I don’t really have to motivate myself to do any of these things, they come natural to me. Which is why I always say don’t go with the crowd, do what works for you.
Do you work or study from home? Do you do both like me? How are you staying motivated? Let’s chat. Drop me a comment in the comments section. Thanks for stopping by. Have a lovely day.
Great write up… Thank you for sharing nice information.
Thanks for reading.
I did the previous incarnation of this module – I still have the ‘investigating psychology’ textbook plus whatever the two others were …. something on ‘methods’ I would guess 🤷♀️. I can’t remember, it was about 4 or 5 years back now. I had to do my degree part time over 6 years and I had to restart a module on the next intake because of a death in the family at the time. Still, I’d banked myTMA scores so didn’t have to start from scratch. Despite BIG health issues that make studying a lot harder than it should be, I graduated with a 2:1 BA (Hons) Humanities with Literature. I was doing English Lit & Lang but hated the grammar module on sight 😂😂 – enough to change my degree path 😂. The only advice I can give you is this….. Push yourself but recognise what your REAL limits are – you’re no good to anybody if you’ve broken. Also, check out your student module websites for any audio materials that may be available. Sometimes, listening to module material may make it easier to take in than reading it. There are some people on the OU Forums that are wonderful, fabulous people and you can make lifelong friends that you may even meet up with irl. Equally, there are a lot of ‘know it alls’ on there too. It doesn’t matter what you know, what you’ve done or where you have been. They have ALWAYS done it better, had it harder, and struggled more 🤦♀️….. leave them to it 😂. Marker pens and post it notes. I don’t care if you think you’ll do your whole degree online ……. you’ll still go through a sh*t tonne of these – especially around exam or EMA times 😂❤️. In the darkest times, remember why you’re doing it. Remember you’re not on your own and there is a vast online community of OU’ers online – especially on Facebook – the module groups are usually fun. Enjoy it, there’ll be highs and lows but it’ll be worth it ❤️.
Best of luck with it,
Sarah
Thanks a lot for the information Sarah. So nice of you. I am looking forward to the journey and it has been great so far. I am really finding the audio material useful. Well done on finishing with a 2:1! That is so amazing.
Thank You! Ah you’re welcome – I’m glad the audio helps. Best of luck with it, you’ll be great ❤️
My mummy has the best of both worlds and works in an office half the week and the other half as a home worker, it must be hard working and studying at home full time – you must be very motivated! Great tips and good luck with the course x
Thank you.
I have two jobs and one is working from home. If I am at home all week I do find I am less motivated – I admire anyone that works / studys from home and has a family to look after too
It can be really hard. Thanks Kara.
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