Archive for the ‘Productivity’ Category

It’s easy to become distracted and lower your productivity when you’re working unsupervised from the comfort of your home. Family members, household chores, and temptations like the TV can interrupt your focus and keep you from getting work done. With some planning and diligence, however, you can keep distractions to a minimum.

Here are the top 10 ways you can start creating a distraction-free work environment.

1. Set a Regular Schedule

Planning your workday is essential to making the best use of your time. Setting regular office hours will allow you to create a time box (see 11 Ways to Get More Done Using Time Boxing for more details) for each of the day’s activities and communicate to others when your workday begins and ends. If you have small children, you may need to schedule your work around their nap-times or another caregiver’s schedule so that you can have a good chunk of uninterrupted time to work. Creating a schedule will keep you on track by creating a place for all of the activities in your day.

If you’re serious about succeeding with your home-based business, you’ll need to set some ground rules for you and your family to follow. Setting expectations and limitations for your children and spouse will help everyone adjust better to your new work arrangement.

Here are 7 areas you should address in your ground rules to keep your home and business life happy.

1. Interruptions

Establish guidelines on what merits an interruption during work time, and make sure that everyone is clear that the rules apply to all of them. If your kids are too young to take care of themselves, your rules will need to be looser to accommodate them.

“Do Not Disturb” signs and other signals are a good way to indicate when you would really prefer not to be interrupted. You can minimize interruptions by anticipating requests and responding to them in advance. For example, you could lay out snacks, clothes, activities, and more before you start your workday.

It can be difficult to get into a productive mindset when the distractions of your home call out to you. Distractions cost you time you could be spending working on projects that make you money, so you’ll want to avoid them as much as possible.

A great solution to drawing clear boundaries between your work and family life is to devote a space in your home for a separate office or dedicated workspace. When you are working, you can close the door to shut out non-work distractions, and when you are finished with work, you can get out (and stay out!) of your workspace and make the most of your home life. The characteristics of that workspace will determine how effectively you’ll be able to work in it.

Here are 3 tips to making a work-friendly workspace for yourself.

1. Make it comfortable

How comfortable you are while working can play a big role in determining how productive you can be. Be sure to consider such factors as lighting, temperature, and the height and fit of your desk and chair when determining where to place your office and how you furnish it. Remember — you’ll be spending a lot of time in your workspace!

2. Keep it tidy and organized

If your workspace is disorganized, it will distract your mind from your tasks. If you don’t have one already, it’s important to get a system in place to help keep your work and workspace neat and organized. Clean out your drawers and designate different drawers for different things — for example, you can have one for office supplies, one for your receipts and to-do lists, etc. Unless an item on your desk serves a particular purpose, remove it or move it to a place in your house that is more appropriate for it. This will give you much more desk space to work on.

Prioritizing your work to figure out which projects need to get done first is important, but tackling these tasks in order of priority is not always the best way to handle your workload.

People naturally work better at different times of day, so you should take advantage of the hours when you are more energetic and able to focus to take on your most important projects.

By adjusting your schedule so that you do your most important work during your most productive times, you will be able to maximize your productivity without working more hours, and produce the best quality of work you are capable of.

Follow these tips to get the most out of your work hours.

1. Figure out your work flow, from your best to worst work hours

You probably already know if you are a morning person or night person. Now it’s time to get more specific. You will know you’re in your best work hours when you can focus better, complete tasks quicker, have more energy, feel confident and excited about approaching projects, and feel fresh and full of ideas. You’ll know you’re in your worst work hours when you feel sluggish and unable to focus, take more time to complete routine tasks, are easily distracted and prone to procrastination and just can’t seem to get started on creative work, and feel drained and out of ideas.