Is the home office just not working out for you?
Distracted by every little thing?
Giving in too much to social media or just can’t seem to get the kids to stop bothering?
You’re not alone.
Many who are working from home find distractions… …well… distracting.
But they don’t have to be. Andres is a work-at-home-warrior with a few good tips:
“I have a job to perform, I still need to book business, I still need to get clients on the books,” he says.
“So you need to focus and set goals, I have a checklist that I go buy every single day of things I need to do and need to accomplish.”
And, he treats work at home just like a regular job.
“I go in normal hours, I go in from 8 til 4:30, I still take my lunch break and things like that. So you make it more like a routine and you’re OK.”
But even Andres knows working from home is hard and takes getting used to:
“Once you get into a routine, you get used to it. But, the first couple of weeks you wash the dishes, and all the little knick-knacks here and there, but not anymore.”
Andres says maintaining a routine and meeting goals are important to being successful on your own at home. And with many companies now checking progress by completed tasks it’s a good way to stay on a productivity schedule.
Rhonda is another work-at-home warrior who’s taken the home-office to a new level:
“I have a separate room, I go in there and basically lock myself in there and I’m at an office.”
Rhonda’s solution works well if your household is populated by kids of any age and/or a furloughed husband stuck in front of the TV most of the day.
Taking this step means prioritizing your life to complete the job you are employed at and putting the rest of the world on notice you have important things to do.
And much like Andres, maintaining a routine and schedule is important to getting through the day, productively:
“If you have somewhat of an organizational schedule, it tremendously helps you,” Rhonda says. “And if you try to organize your time, and block it out, you can get a lot more done that way.”
Then there’s John who makes it as simple as he can: “We have to focus on the task at hand. Obviously we have to protect our livelihoods and our families, so distractions have to become a second fiddle right now.”