How to Stay Focused While Working From Home
As someone who is self employed and performs 90{166b94f287569d1a0b2d85b3ea75ab9dd7b0d0871262724b9cd08371aa02a20d} of my work by creating content from home I can give you a few pointers on how I am able to stay focused and be productive.
Does your job require you to be on the phone most of the day and answering tickets? If that is the case then some of what I will be going over may still apply expect for the timing portion that I will speaking about.
Your Environment Plays A Major Factor In Your Work Focus and Productivity
- Create a dedicated area specifically for work related use
- Structure out your day with tasks
- Incorporate breaks
- Limit doing any non work related activities during your working hours.
Create A Dedicated Area Specifically For Work
While not everyone can have a dedicated room, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a specific area in your living quarters that is for work use only.
Being able to separate your work environment at home will help get you in the habit of only performing work related activities in that area.
Keep things you need readily available in order to stop you from having any interruptions. When you are in state of work flow you don’t want to break that momentum because you didn’t have something that you could have .
Structure Out Your Day With Tasks
Don’t create tasks just to have them. Be weary of what you put on your tasks and check lists.
The tasks you do should be done in increments and should have the biggest impact on your business or workload.
When I first got into the bullet journal and weekly planner stuff, I thought I was productive since I was marking off so much throughout the day and that made me feel good.
What I didn’t realize, while I was getting hit with that rush of dopamine but ticking off each of those tasks was that I wasn’t really moving the needle in my business.
Tasks such as changing the layouts and themes of my wordpress or adding a new logo or making a new video intro is all cool and all but it doesn’t move my business ahead or add money in my pocket
Important tasks such as pushing publish every day on to create new content for my readers and viewers out there does move the needle and that is what I need to concentrate on.
I didn’t know that at first , so what I did we find somone who had the results I wanted and joined their circle. I was able to find a mentor (Ed Dale) at that time and he helped me structure the way I work on day to day activities and projects.
What I am going to share with you going forward is similar to The Pomodoro Method and is called Critical Focus Time.
With this structure I work in 50 minute time block sessions and I use the this time timer I bought from Amazon to plan daily 2-3 , 50 minute block sessions.
I know what you’re probably thinking that less than 3 hours for the whole day. Yes, you’d be correct in saying so however it’s the work that counts.
If you work continuously without interruption for 50 minutes straight on a task you will get more work done then what normally would have taken you close to two hours to complete.
Don’t believe me. Set a timer for 50 minutes and perform that one specific task.
I’ll give you example of what you can try. Set a timer for 50 minutes and don’t do anything except for writing down all the different ways you can make passive income online.
You may get stumped after 4 minutes but keep pushing through. This is how I come up with ideas on subjects to write or make videos about.
You may not think you have time to do this but the way you manage your time can be the difference of doing something as a side hustle and turning it into your full time business.
Incorporate breaks
Even the most productive person in the world can get burned out and if you are putting in 100{166b94f287569d1a0b2d85b3ea75ab9dd7b0d0871262724b9cd08371aa02a20d} effort into your tasks at hand then you need to give yourself a break.
I suggest minimum of 10 minutes in-between before starting your next task.
Depending on how early my day starts I may work on two 50 minute task sessions with a 10 minute break in-between and then take nap for half an hour or more afterwards.
After I get up from my nap I feel totally refreshed and even better knowing that the majority of my work for the day has already been completed and it’s not even noon yet.
If I were to do back to back 50 minutes sessions with just a 10 minute break and then go watch TV or eat then my brain is still at it’s capacity and if I tried to go back to work I will be mentally exhausted.
This is why having a nap afterwards refreshes me and makes it seem like I am starting a new day.
Be sure to give yourself a break and if you can throw in a nap, give it a try. Trust me, it’s not being lazy, it’s working smart and at your optimal performance.
Limit Doing Any Non Work Related Activities During Your Working Hours.
The whole purpose of the above exercise to keep you focused on your work for just 50 minutes at a time. This means no surfing the internet (unless part of your research), no social media, no answering phone calls or text messages.
I hate to break it to you but you are only working for a 50 minute session and you get a 10 minute break immediately so that tweet or text message can surely wait.
I’ve been doing this for awhile and even I have a difficult time with this too. There’s this puzzle game on my phone that I love playing and I tend to pick it up out of habit just to play a round or two.
We are important people and phone calls come in but once you train yourself on how to be productive and see that waiting after your focus session is done that you call that person back and enjoy those games and social media during your break. You earned it.
Final Thoughts
There is no right way of staying focused but if you’ve tried many other things and the past and they haven’t worked then why not try creating 50 minute critical focus time to work on tasks that matter and push your business forward.
