Working From Home Takes Focus...Do you Agree?

strongly agree, it require high scipline and focus if you work at home, else you finally will found out that you did nothing end of the day. Besides, the time arrangement is also very important as well

 

Always have time management to set things accordingly. Set time for works separate with your time for home, family, friends and fun. Working from home give you more time for yourself and others but sometimes more stressful because you just working with yourself unlike in normal offices.

 

I agree, it's very very hard and takes a lot of constant practice to discipline yourself.

I've found that having an absolutist attitude with yourself works best, don't cut yourself slack by allowing yourself to listen to the radio or your favourite music as you work; it's easy to delude yourself into thinking you can be casual and professional at the same time, but as great as working from home can be, it's 10 times harder to focus due to the freedoms you can allow yourself.

By setting rules like "No music. No audiobooks. No noise", you give yourself a far better chance of success, you really need to cut all potential for distraction out.

It's also easy to overload yourself, as due to the fact you need to create your own 'on-the-fly' structure, and have total freedom to do so... it's easy to think you can do twenty things at once, but what happens is you just get confused about where to start, feel bogged down and end up taking the easy way out by diverting to your favourite browsing spot for '10 minutes... which turns into 10 hours'.

As much as we self-employed like to poo-poo the 9-5 structure and emphasize our freedom, I do definitely think that you need to adhere to time structures and stay professional in mindset.

If you have 100 things to do, I've found that just picking one and absolutely sticking to that one, and not stopping until done... helps a lot. It becomes easier trying to knock down one idea, article or task at a time vs. feeling like a megatron and thinking you can multi-task to high-heaven but actually getting very little done, slowly, over a long period of time and left feeling messy and unaccomplished.

SO I think the main rules are:
- Set clear, achievable and singular tasks, and smash them out, one at a time.
- Have a strict 'no distractions' policy (no music, audio or browsing), and stick to it.
- Create time targets, allow yourself breaks but hit or try your hardest to hit clock goals.

As already mentioned - rewards are helpful too. I've found little 'entertainment rewards' work well, such as "I'll finish X, Y Z and then watch an episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' (come on, that's a great reward!)" - I think what this does is give you a subconscious prize that you run towards in some sense too. Whilst you should be working on the basis of passion and self-fulfillment, that in itself is still hard to drive the wagon the whole way, and tricking your brain with carrots on a stick is helpful.

I find that kind of propels you to work quicker and more determined too.

 

Strangely i can never concentrate during the day, there are always too many distractions... I find it far easier to work late in the evening and the small hours. it's pretty anti-social working really later, but i can get twice as much done when i'm focused during this time....

 

Yes discipline is the hardest part of working from home and now its the discipline of not getting distracted when i work from a park or a cafe. Congratulations on your achievements its always good to hear some one being productive online and putting forth the effort. It helps to show others in this forum and around the world that it is possible and the diligence it really does take. To many people try to say fake success stories all over the place and they leave out the key concepts of what is really involved.
Hope you the best in the future and would hope to hear you are at the same point if not better success next year.

 

Perception, I guess. My daughter lives on Oahu and says it rains all the time.

 

Yeah but it rains when its like 75 degrees out. Still not a good excuse to stay inside

 

Distraction is a major problem when you work from home. Thats what is my opinion.

 

A lot of jobs we can take as oppotunity to work from home..
and I agree with you that it need focus, it happen on me sometime, there is a time doing marketing is boring..
and when that happen, my sales is drop...

thanks for remind me about FOCUS..

 

It not only requires a lot of focus, but also a lot of hard work and time when you want to do it the correct way.

 

And don't let your family, children come to you while working, decide how many hours you have to work and don't distract your mind upto that hours..

One thing more, I face is related to depression, tension, it is about your family matters, legal things, insult, some works from society, feeling of looseness would come into your mind and they would create lots of problem when you are working so you have to get rid of these things.

 

Agreed.. it takes a lot of self-discipline..that's for sure.

 

Only for 15 minutes a day when I am not wanting to go outside. : )
Seriously, I am on the windward side of the island and winter is the rainy season... It rains every few days but only for a short time. Warm rain. And I live on the beach so it's a good trade off. I have not had a cold day since I got here in December. That said, people were bundling up when the temp dropped to the mid-upper-60s one morning. It was hilarious.

 

Hi,

If I am working from home, I will be refresh full day and might be working with 100% focus and more time. Because we are not in crowded or traffic and full day I feel refreshment.

 

it is quite annoying to work from home, because you dont feel like you are in the work.

Im gonna get office soon and it should change some things.

 

Of course, you should refresh yourself, mainly if you are working as a freelancer, you have to complete task at time.

 

I've been working from home for the last 7 years. Mainly on my own projects, but also as a freelancer from time to time and I am extremely happy that way.
Unfortunately, as the work results (money earned) aren't that good last months (which highly demotivates me) who knows what will future bring - might need to return in some f*****g office... Hope will not.
Otherwise, I do not have any problems with time organization or distraction, only with demotivation...

 

I deffo agree with you about being distratced more easily, after some time tho i've got into a routine and with bills on my mind constantly i've gotten more discipline to work. ( i'm a wordpress theme designer and coder. )

My biggest hurdle at the moment is aquisition of work. I feel my design is now on par with my coding ability but am having trouble marketting myself to people and getting them to trust in me.

I have been doing some work for someone from india but the pay isn't great so am looking to network currently.

It's hard going tho, i can supply but i can't find the demand easily!

 

Definitely agree. It takes a focus, setting goals, priority setting as well as research. You always have to stay up to date with technology and marketing.

 

I am still working from home. It's been like many many years. I don't want to count them.
Now I am planning to open an office away from home. When I m home, I can work but I get lots of distraction.. sometimes with family and sometimes with own thoughts. You have to have a good room with office things around you to make it look like an office and work. But still, when you're home, you are at your home and you can loose discipline just like that.