When I first decided that I wanted to work from home so I could stay home with our children when we had them (that still hasn’t happened, actually) I decided to become a medical transcriptionist (MT) because that was what I read about in an ad in the newspaper one Sunday. Not really the best reason for choosing a career path, but at the time, it made sense to me. I quit my day job and went to school full-time so I could graduate quickly and start working right away as an MT.
My husband was very impressed with my studiousness at first. I was working from morning ’til night, studying and testing and reading for hours at a time, or so we thought. I was constantly on the computer, and I boasted how I was going to get my schooling done within three months (most people take 9-15 months to complete the course) because I was working so hard on it.
After a couple of weeks, I compared my progress against the outline given by the school. Not only was I not lightyears ahead of where the school said I should be (it was a go-at-your-own-pace school, but they did provide a general guideline to check your progress against) but I wasn’t even keeping up with the school’s schedule. At this rate, I wasn’t even going to finish within a year, let alone sooner. I panicked. Our finances wouldn’t handle me taking a year to finish school–I really needed to be done within the three months. After thinking it over though, I decided that it was really too early to tell. Maybe I was just building such a firm foundation by being thorough in the beginning like this that I would just whiz through the next sections like nobody’s business.
A few weeks later, I compared my progress again. This time, it couldn’t be denied or explained away. I was really far behind. I ran the calculations again, and the only way I was going to graduate on time was if I managed to study 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, which I didn’t believe would happen even in my wildest imaginings. What on earth was happening?
The next day, I decided to keep track of everything I did that day. That was an eye-opening experience, and not in a good way. I couldn’t believe it. I was wasting almost the entire day piddling around. I would get up and go in to start studying right away. Except I had to check my message boards first, before I could study, of course. I would sit and reply to threads and PMs until my stomach growled so loudly I couldn’t ignore it anymore. I would hurry and eat breakfast, then come back and read all of the replies I had received while gone. Of course I had to reply back right away! Then I would take a whiff of myself and realize that yet again, I hadn’t taken a shower in a day or two, so I would head off for the shower. After getting dressed in my “uniform” (sweats and a grungy t-shirt) I would come back to the computer and see that there were more replies I had to respond to. By this time, I would feel guilty that I hadn’t gotten anything done, so I would try to reply quickly so I could hurry and start studying. After about 30 minutes of studying, my husband would come home for lunch–lunch time! Yay, time for a break!
Of course I had to take my hour-long lunch break, and then it was back to studying. Except I really needed to make dinner so it could cook all afternoon, so I would promise myself I would be quick. I would head off to the kitchen and work in there for an hour or so (oh yeah, the dishes I didn’t do last night!) until I would realize that yet again, I hadn’t gotten much done in my studying. Time to get some more time in. Fifteen minutes into my “study hour” I was ready for a nap. The afternoon nap was always impossible for me to avoid. An hour later, I would wake up, bleary-eyed and a bit grumpy. Oh crud, I hadn’t visited my forums in a while! I would get back on the computer–I had to know happened without me. Ten replies later, and I would realize that I had never done that load of laundry I needed to do. Off to the laundry room, and then a mental check: I really need to get some studying done! Thirty minutes later I would be yawning again (I really didn’t like medical terminology or the medical world, so studying was next to impossible for me to do for long stretches of time. Nothing against the medical world, it just wasn’t my cup of tea) so I would tell myself that I deserved a break from studying so much, so I should go read a book for a bit to give myself a breather. Never mind that I had only managed to study a whopping hour and 15 minutes out of the 8 hours I had spent at home–in my mind, I felt like I had been studying all day long! It wasn’t until I started keeping a log of what I was doing that I realized that reality was much different than what I had been telling myself was going on.
If this sounds anything like what you’ve been doing, check out tomorrow’s post about how to stay on track while working from home.