Finding Focus with Online Coworking Sessions

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today, I wanna talk about procrastination, balanced with a little bit of overwhelm. You see, in the context of sort of working remotely or working from home, being your own boss, there can be a lack of structure or just general distractions around you, and it might make it really easy for you to procrastinate on doing certain tasks that are good for your career or your business and, which can eventually lead to overwhelm because you've backed up all your tasks so much that now your to do list looks never ending. And so what I found is that there's a way to be held accountable that uses virtual co working. And back in 2020 2021 2020, I should say, and 2021, I ran a virtual co working sessions, based roughly on the Pomodoro method, and it was very successful. And now what I found is that now I no longer run these, I kind of miss them. And so I went in search of actually, another friend reminded me about, the fact virtual co working existed and there are many different companies that provide these services and some do it where you have to have video on, some do it where you have to say, like, what your intentions are. There are so many different ways to run a virtual co working session and it is about finding ones that work for you and how a co working session might help you provide structure is it could be on your calendar and you feel like you can't miss it like in its appointment.

So, you might have an hour or 2 hours blocked off to do certain work. So, if you're into time blocking, for example, you could have 2 hours blocked off to do a virtual working session and you could just work focus on clearing out your emails or digital decluttering or whatever else it is that you want to dedicate those 2 hours to. Another way that it can help is just having another person there to say, hey. I'm gonna spend 25 minutes working on this speech. And then after the 25 minutes, you're like, I worked on that speech for 25 minutes. I'm now gonna do something else. Working alongside somebody even if their camera isn't even on virtually without direct interaction can automatically increase your focus and motivation. Just the presence of others, just that that background noise can reduce the temptation to procrastinate and therefore will help manage those feelings of overwhelm.

And there's there's ways that you can use virtual co working to your advantage. It's a way of blocking out your calendar so other people can't put time on there. That can be great. And especially if you think in advance, okay. What is it that I want to achieve during this time? What is the goal for this time? What will help move my business and my career or my project forward if I use this time wisely? And the other benefit that you get from that is knowing that oh hey If I spend half an hour, I'm gonna get this far in a project. If I spend an hour, I'm gonna get this far in a project. I know one thing that I've realized is that, for example, one of the co working spaces that I use, they're really big on 50 minute focus times. I personally cannot focus for 50 minutes.

So, I kind of make my own sort of time limits and periods that I want to work in. And, normally, it's around the 25, 30 minute mark. That's my sweet spot to be able to concentrate on one thing for any given period of time without getting lost down rabbit holes or looking at my email. The other thing about sort of going ahead and working virtually and having that accountability, you have people who will cheer you on. They'll be like, hey. Congratulations on spending 25 minutes on insert thing here. We have people who will do co working sessions to chop vegetables. Do You know how satisfying it is watching someone chop vegetables it's great or tidy up their office or feed their cat or just self care.

Blocking out that time and doing virtual self care can be a wonderful thing because you feel some kind of accountability. So, if you're struggling with procrastinating on some things or want to have intentional dedicated time on self care or working on a certain project it could even be cross stitch Try virtual co working and see how that works for you. There are so many, ones available out there or just maybe get with some friends and have a little Zoom party or a Google Meets party and do it that way. So thank you for listening. This is Janice at thecareerintrovert.com helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.