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Dear Jasminda,

I work from home and I find I keep getting distracted by day-to-day life. Any suggestions?

Mr JU, Tea Gardens

Mr JU,

It is easy to get distracted. Back in the day when we worked from home and used word processors, our distractions were perhaps clouds flitting across the sky, or a magpie warbling, or the postie delivering our mail.

Now, the Internet has changed things. Say, during your morning tea break, you decide to check what is going on in your friends’ lives. You scroll through and someone likes a memory of your kids and they send you a message about the time you dined together in Austria. You ‘like’ this message, but that seems dismissive, so you write a couple of sentences about the amazing schnitzels. You add an emoji, then another, and another. They respond with another message. You give them the ‘thumbs up’ emoji which means, the conversation is over. They give you a ‘thumbs up’ emoji and you realise you should send them a link about Internet protocol.

You are about to log off, when you spot a video of a guy using a device called a Beard Bro, and even though you don’t have a beard or a bro, you decide to watch it. Now your tea is cold. Next your eyes swivel to an adorable video of a panda eating a carrot. You watch it twice. It’s very cute. You think about how much you’d like to own a panda. Knowing that is impossible, you think about how much you’d like to eat a carrot.

You head to the fridge. Just above the carrots is half a Tiramisu. You take a spoonful. Then another. You take the whole packet out of the fridge and eat straight from the container (you can do that when you don’t have work colleagues).

Returning to the Internet, you look up diets for people who eat Tiramisu when they should be eating carrots. Instead you come across a video of a man trying to teach his Labrador pup how to walk down stairs. You think about how much you’d like a Labrador.

You feel bad about having these thoughts when your faithful cattle dog is at your feet. You take him for a walk.

Mr JU, I think you should work in the library. Or disconnect your Internet. Or get a job as a teacher or a nurse or a paramedic. They don’t have time for this nonsense.

Carpe diem,
Jasminda.