When you work from home, everything is a distraction: A phone call from your mom, a visit from a neighbor, a quick trip to the grocery store, followed by a run to the dry cleaners and then picking up the kids from school… How can you do anything with all these interruptions?
Well, if you’ve traded the office for the freedom of working at home, you’ve joined the millions who have decided to take up the challenge of working part-time or full-time in the comfort of their own home. But not everything is a bed of roses. There are problems everywhere!
For example, you have to be wary of what used to be a fine dividing line between your personal life and your professional life, which has now emerged as a fuzzy area filled with a bunch of time traps.
If you want to be successful, you will have to learn to dance between personal obligations and professional demands.
When you’re at home, traps are just everywhere. Whether it’s doing laundry, staying out of the kitchen, or cleaning up last night’s mess, it’s all too easy to get caught up in getting things done around the house, and time-consuming (even if necessary) tasks. and that takes you away from work efficiency.
Whether you’re running an online business or just starting out on your own, there are a few things you can do to avoid the dangers that threaten those of us who work from home
4 Mistakes To Avoid When Working From Home
Table of Contents
Create Your Own Workspace
Having your own workspace is essential to your success. You have to simply “claim” your sector in the house that is off-limits to everyone except you.
Having your workspace can provide you with the environment you need to organize your thoughts, hold your meetings, and ultimately get work done.
Establish A Routine / Schedule
It’s easy to stay in bed when you’ve had a bad night. However, by maintaining a regular routine that starts with starting your day at a certain time, you’ll have a better idea of the “time limits” that are crucial to your day-to-day success.
If you’re working from home, you might be expected to pick up the kids from school at 1:45 pm, for example, but then you need to block out enough time to make sure you can get your work done.
You will have to train your spouse, your family, and other people involved in what your work schedule will be and then stick to that schedule.
Dress Accordingly
When working from home, it’s easy to stay in your pajamas until noon. Do not do it! Start the day with a shower and dress casually if you are expecting a meeting. Often you will find that if you dress accordingly, your production increases because you “feel” that you are working.
Learn To Say “No”
When people know you’re “home” during the day, you’ll get requests, petitions, or demands to pick up the kids or do your friend a favor.
The first inclination may be to say, “Sure, I’m available!” But the best thing is to say “No!” If the request falls within a certain business hour, even if you don’t have a meeting, phone call, or seminar scheduled during that time, it’s best to say you’re not available.
After all, it’s your valuable work time that you can use for your marketing, answer customer questions, or affect the development of your business. Unless it is an absolute emergency, answer “No!” Create limits to the interruption of other people and stick to them, that will help you keep your productivity on track.
Also, consider setting aside time once a week to reflect on how your business is doing. Think about the things that take up a lot of your time and work on a way to streamline them next week.
If you’re running to the store every other day to buy groceries, maybe you can schedule a certain time during the week to do that shopping.
Also, be sure to allow personal time for yourself. Take time to exercise, have coffee with a friend, or engage in hobbies and activities that you love and that provide you with an essential sense of renewal.
Conclusions
You can work from home but you must be aware of the need to implement a system that allows you to keep distractions out of your work schedule and area (family included).
If you don’t set those limits yourself, others won’t and you’ll end up ruining your business and perhaps your health as well.
If you allow family, neighbors, and even the cat to continuously interrupt your work, the level of stress and frustration will be enormous. Those of us who work from home tend to forget those things.
Learn More About BUSINESS From DigitalBusinessGrow.com
