Hi, Dr. Paul here again. Have you been wondering how to stay disciplined when
working from home. It's a little challenging but there are some ways to
do that. Working from home brings a lot of advantages, it's also kind of tough.
And to understand why that is the case, I'd love to share with you a model that
I usually use in my parenting programs but it has total relevance to what we're
talking about here. And on this graph, we will plot control over here and maturity
down here. Control means control over your own life. See how this is going to tie
in to working from home? It goes from zero control to a 100%
control. You can have all of it or none of it or somewhere in between. And most
of us are somewhere in between, right?Now, maturity has to do with how grown-up you
are. Now, I know you're a grown-up but how grown-up are you? And to understand this
let's start with age. Because age is probably the quickest way to define
maturity. At birth over here on this end, how much control do you have over your
own life? Hardly any. Clear down here, you can make a big noise and a big stink and
that's about it. How about as an adult? At this other end of the spectrum, how much
control do you have as an adult? Now, I know that there is some small print, I
get that. But what I'm talking about is generally speaking, how much do you get
to have the say over what's going on in your life as an adult? Let's just put it
at or near a hundred percent, okay? Now, between birth and adulthood is this line
that divides the control between self control and others' control. This is
really obvious when we're talking about parenting because your kids, when they're
really little, don't have much self control. Somebody else has to kick in and
take most of the control over their life, their parents ,right? As we become adults,
our parents no longer control our life. I know some of them are still trying to,
that's another video. But here's the thing, you have to share the control one
way or another. The more mature you are, the more control you get to have over
your own life. Who are the other people who take control over your life? Okay,
your employer is one of those, right? How much control they get to have depends on
how mature you're going to be. So, let's break this down next. We're going to take
a jot of the equation and talk stage, stage not age, stage not age. As we divide
this chart into three stages, stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3. Different levels of
maturity. In stage 1 over here, we tend to be selfish and self-centered and we
require a lot of external control to monitor our behavior. Stage 1, people are
fighting and manipulating and demanding. There's a sense of entitlement
that happens at stage 1. So, you get the picture, right? And this is really clear
to see in toddlers or in two-year-olds but adults are capable of this stuff too.
Pay attention, you're going to see it all over the place.
Stage 2 is where we move from fighting into cooperating. You're willing to
cooperate with people, you'll negotiate and try to come up with a win-win
solution. This is all about stage two. You don't want any trouble, you want to keep
the peace and so, you're going to work with other people. Well you get a little
more control when you moved to stage 2. And
usually, this is where you hang out if you are in someone else's employ, okay?
Stage 1, you're probably not employed. You may well be incarcerated. Where
somebody else is taking all the control in your life. Stage 2 is what's
required for us to get along with other people and actually interact and be an
employee. Stage 3 is the highest level of maturity. Stage 3 is where we are not
only are we cooperating and negotiating, we take initiative. Initiative. Where we
see, what needs to be done, we do it. Nobody else has to tell us to do it. This
is where we are truly responsible. Now, you can see why I brought a parenting
topic in to working from home or working for yourself or being an entrepreneur.
Setting your own schedule. That's going to require a higher level of maturity.
There's a really cool payoff because you get to have more control which is
synonymous with freedom but freedom is not free.
And I see people make this mistake all the time when they get into
self-employment or they want to work from home, they see the allure of all
that freedom and they don't step up with the maturity and responsibility that is
required to structure your own behavior in a productive way. Now, do you need
someone else to structure that for you? If so, you don't have any business
working from home. If you can have that level of maturity, there's a lot of
freedom, there's a lot of payoff that can come from that. So quick wrap-up of this
part, there has to be a 100% control. The question is who's going to
take it? And if you're not ready to take it on yourself then probably you're not
ready to work from home. I know that's a little harsh but you know what? It's not
that hard. It just requires a level of maturity and responsibility
that maybe you weren't anticipating. Let's pay attention to that because
that's going to power things up. Now, I promised you three tips, three things
that you can do to power this up. number 1,
"get an accountability partner" or system. You know what? As mature as you are, it's
still hard to get yourself to do what needs to be done without some kind of
system in place for accountability. This could be as simple as teaming up with
your spouse or your partner to say, "Hey, at the end of every week, I'm going to
give you an accounting of what I accomplished while working from home ." Can
you see how that might change something in your own mind? Now, you're still
providing all of the control and the structure around this but when you have
to report it to another person or when you know that someone else is expecting
you to check in about this, it raises your level of performance. So, number 1,
get an accountability partner or system in place, so that you can trust yourself
more to do the work. Number 2. And folks, this is consistent with what I've shared
with you about the control and maturity diagram. For people who are entrepreneurs
or structuring their own time or working from home, we're in a little different
economy than the typical employee. So, I want to talk about these two economies
and then I'll summarize number two for you. There's a time and effort economy
and this is where you give your time in your effort. You punch the time clock, you
put in your time, you punch out, you go home. Then there's a results economy and
this is where the entrepreneurs of the world live, where you don't get paid for
your time and effort. You get paid for your results. So, number two is to "focus
on results" not time and effort. What I mean by that is if you're going to work
from home and there are certain things you need to accomplish, set a goal to
accomplish those certain things. Rather than to put in
time and effort on those things. It's a mindset shift to bring yourself to focus
on those results rather than the typical time and effort that an employee would
be focusing on. I got to do my 9 to 5, Monday through Friday this week and
you're not really focused on the results. Well, working from home or working for
yourself, it's only the results that you get paid for. Does that makes sense to you? So,
focus on results rather than time and effort, that's number 2.
Moving on to number 3, "do your work", now! Okay, let me define "now" for you
because philosophically, the only time you can do anything is now. Meaning, when
you're doing it, what time is it? Oh, it's now, yeah. We tell ourselves sometimes,
"I'll do it later." How you going to do that? later never shows up. Check your calendar.
It's always today, isn't it? Yeah, just like it's always now. The only
time you're going to do anything is now. So, quit telling yourself you'll do it later.
Let's define "now" because right now you and I are having a conversation and
you're not doing all of the work that you have to do. That's fine. When are you
going to do the work? You're going to do it now. How are we going to define now? Now has a
start time and an end time and a very specific task in between those two end
points. That's how we will define the now. When am I going to do it? I'm going to do
it. Now, when does that now starts, when does that now end and what is the
specific task that I will do in between. So, this is a way to structure and
organize your own mind around the work that you have to accomplish at home.
Rather than having it be just an amorphous blob of whatever your
obligations are. Get clear about doing things now. So, let's say for example that
you've got a report that needs to be finished.
Okay, how much time is that going to take you? Well, it might take me an hour, maybe
an hour and a half to finish this report. Just using that as an example. When am I
going to do that report? Now. Not right now because I'm watching Live on Purpose
TV. But when will my now be? It's going to be Tuesday morning from 10 o'clock to
Tuesday morning at 11:30. That's the now. You put it into a system
and accountability system that you trust. That maybe your calendar. Start time, end
time, specific tasks in between. You don't do anything else during that time. This
is a way to keep yourself accountable. Now, what if something else important
comes up and you have to put that in Tuesday at 10 o'clock? Okay fine, when are
you going to do the report? Then pick a new now. It might be Tuesday morning but
I'm going to start at 11:15 and go to 12:45 or whatever it is, okay? So, you decide
when the now is. But it's got to have a start time and end time, very specific
tasks in between. That's much more brain friendly and you can actually get
yourself to get this work done. Self discipline, right? Sounds hard but it
really helps us to get more freedom. I'm glad you've got some of that. I'll see
you tomorrow.