How To Stop Being Distracted When Working At Home

As more and more of my friends are working from home they are experiencing relationship difficulties in their families associated with the distractions working from home brings.

They report low energy, low productivity and low vitality which inevitably go hand in hand with low self-esteem My husband Stephen and I (not the one who is Madonna’s musical collaborator:)) have been working from home for the most part of our married life, which amounts to 20 years this September!  Since we both had successful careers, changed countries twice and are raising a child together while working from home we have some experience on remaining focussed when working from home.  This week I am writing about how you can avoid some of the pitfalls and enjoy more of the benefits of working from home brings.

What Makes Us Distracted Working From Home?

Matthew Jenkin is the editor of Guardian careers.  He asked in a survey on his website home-based workers about their greatest distractions. Their response, in descending order, was family, neighbours, housework and the lure of food and drink.

All surveys are limited with the choices offered to the population. I would want to add to this list some behaviours such as procrastination, inability to concentrate, difficulty in prioritising, being a ‘nice’ person with the associated inability to say no.  These are the problematic attitudes I observe in those of my friends and clients who work from home.

Tools To Stop Being Distracted and To Stay Focused

Here are some tested tools Stephen and I, together with our clients have been developing over the years:

1) Make sure you carry with you an agenda (with days of the week and times of the day) and write down what you need to be doing every day.  You can also take notes in it whenever you have an idea wherever you are.

2)  Make lists for every day for the tasks you want and need to accomplish in order to tick them as you achieve.   Include in this list the household chores so that you have the pleasure to look and give yourself appreciation for doing them.

3) Stephen is adamant that your list should be a modest one.  He calls it ‘minimum achievable tasks of the day’.  When he achieves it he is a happy guy.  Anything he does extra is a real unexpected bonus.

4)  If a task is too big, divide into smallest parts and write each stage down.  If you can give yourself a time limit it works even better.

5)  I often talk about the physical experiment where once you put the big pebbles in a container the small ones find their places between them.  However when you fill the container with the same amount of small pebbles there isn’t enough space left for the big pebbles.  So it is very vital to determine your big pebbles and prioritise.  The big pebbles should also include activities that make you feel good about yourself such as meeting friends, reading for pleasure, playing with your child, cooking and eating with your family.

6)  In order to be in the present you need to respect yourself.  Schedule regular breaks where you disengage completely and return refreshed.  Some people prefer to work 30mn and then take 20mn breaks.  Experiment with your best working pattern.  You might perform best early morning or in the night.  Observe yourself and your family in order to adapt your life and business around who you are, what you enjoy, when you are at your best etc.

Remember like the inspirational author Robin Sharma says: Success is all about consistency around fundamentals.’  All distractions you experience working from home are showing you where you are at the moment and how you need to evolve as a person.  Often you need to re-evaluate your assumptions about your boundaries which is often linked to your self esteem.

Invitation: Workshops to Increase Self-Esteem

Being open to external influences is similar to easily losing your centre.  That is what happens when you get distracted when working from home.  Once you lose your centre your self esteem suffers.  This in turn makes it really difficult to re-find your balance, regaining your self esteem.

In the autumn of 2016 I will be offering a series of workshops on self-esteem.  These are not specific to home-workers, but I believe if you work from home you will find them useful. To help you to prepare for the workshops I will be sending more valuable tools to help you increase your self-esteem and achieve autonomy in your life.  If you are interested in benefiting from these tools register to my email list here and let’s stay connected.