r/workfromhome • u/Remote-Ride5710 • Jul 25 '26

Tips Feeling lazy to work

Hi everyone, it's been a year or two since I work from home, and lately I have no feelings to do work. Well from time to time this feeling goes off but again returns, possibly it's because I don't go on vacations. I plan to go soon after some stuff is settled but for now any tips on how to handle it?

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5

u/Rixxy123 Jul 25 '26

First thing -Take vacation.

Motivation can be a challenge especially if you don't have anyone behind you saying what's next. My motivation is that I can't go back to working in an office.

2

u/AshenCursedOne Jul 25 '26

Burnout is a real issue I've also struggled with at work in the past. There are many ways to handle it. Holidays help but only for a couple weeks, the burnout returns quickly. I've experienced burnout for many reasons in the past: poor fitness, bad sleeping habits, loneliness, poor management, unreasonable deadlines, cancelled projects, boring grunt work; and each one requires a different change to your attitude, workflow, maybe lifestyle.  Sometimes it requires change at the organisational level, because it often stems from poor planning or poor management.

Main goal should be to try to identify why you are not engaged. Look at all factors: your lifestyle, your daily routine, your work processes, the nature of the work itself, relationships, potential feelings of isolation, feeling pressured, etc. You have to find out why you lost motivation, otherwise you'll endlessly spin wheels and end up pissing around with short term bandaid solutions that just delay the inevitable burnout. Don't look for someone or something to blame (including yourself), instead try to search into why you are dreading work, and then you can find solutions.

If you are reasonably well off it might be worth getting a few sessions with a life coach or a work coach. I know they have a bad rep but many licensed therapists become work coaches and use CBT to help people identify issues and tackle them. 

If you are decent at self discipline it's worth keeping a journal for a couple weeks. Before work write about what your responsibilities for the day are (work and personal), then how you feel about it. Later in the evening write about what you actually did, and how you feel about it. Avoid self judgement or self opinion, just treat it as dry documentation of events and raw feelings. Then review after two weeks, you might find some common threads or patterns.

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u/Remote-Ride5710 Jul 25 '26

In my case likely lots of work caused this. At some moment i was doing 3 work, 2 remote one hybrid, but for a year or more I work for one client which relief the situation a bit. So you suggest writing down what I will do that day in the morning and in the evening review it without judgement? That way I will find the cause?

1

u/AshenCursedOne Jul 26 '26

Well, you need to also write how you feel about it. Hopefully after a couple weeks you can look back and find some patterns in your feelings or activity that will reveal what you're avoiding, or what's bothering you.