We all have them. They come in different forms but they all seek to erode our productivity, and consequently our earning power. Distractions simply must be dealt with if you want to work effectively from home. You must first identify your own enemies of progress and then devise a clear plan for subduing them on a daily basis.
First of all, you must understand yourself: how you work, the support you need, the type of environment you work best in. I know people who must be in a minimalist space with no noise and no people to concentrate. I know others who work best with background noise (radio or music) and in the company of others. Be tough on yourself with this one. It’s not primarily about what you like to do, it’s about what helps you function best and therefore be most successful at work.
Secondly, you need to know how best to schedule your working time:
Your body has a natural rhythm. Some of us are early risers, others work late into the night. Some have a slump in the afternoon, others are just starting to wake up then.
For those who have some flexibility over when they work, and don’t need to stick to the 9-5, try and work as much as possible during your optimum time/s. Because you are more productive, you’ll find yourself working fewer hours and still getting more done.
I do my best work in the early morning - the earlier the better. As long as I can get out of bed this is by far the best way for me to start the day. I predict that I am twice as productive between 5.30 and 7.30am as I am between 2 and 4pm. Of course this largely depends on whether I get to bed early and I’ve had to agree with my ‘night owl’ friends that however much I’m enjoying myself I must be packed off to bed by 10pm.
After the early morning blast, I can then do a few hours (with breaks) until 12 when I tend to stop for lunch. The afternoons are a write-off for me. I thought it was linked to food but after several exclusion diets I concluded it was just my body’s natural state. My second wind comes between 4 and 7, and after that I should be winding down.
The point is, find out what works for you and try to schedule your time so you play to your strengths. It won’t always happen but it’ll make life a lot easier when it does.
If on the other hand you need to work around your clients’ hours, you’ll need to be a bit more savvy. Have a phone or email policy which allows you to respond to clients during their peak times. Schedule business development activities (reviewing your marketing strategy, developing a new product, system or service), generating new business and seeing clients in those time slots when you will be on your best form. Then schedule process tasks (admin, accounts, routine activities) in the times when you feel less alert.
But the nature of distractions is to take all your best efforts and intentions and render them useless. So I’ve identified three types of distraction that I find difficult to deal with and will share what I’m doing to confront them.
1. The constant trickle of emails
I don’t know about you but the minute that little envelope appears at the bottom right hand corner of my screen I need to open it. For some reason I normally deal with it immediately, which might take 2 minutes or half an hour. There’s no way of knowing. If I really need to get my head down to concentrate on something, I simply turn my email notifications off and only open Outlook when I’m finished.
If you’re not working on your computer why not switch the whole thing off for a while? I do this first thing in the morning, writing my list of tasks for the day in a notebook before I switch my laptop on.
2. Boredom
Boredom can be a distraction. My concentration levels aren’t brilliant, and if I work on something for too long my mind starts wandering. Sometimes I’m not even aware of it.
I’m best working on tasks for a short, intense period of time. Some say they work with an alarm or egg timer which goes off at 10 or 20 minute intervals so that they make the most of the time before concentration starts to slide. I’ve never gone that far, but I do at least agree with the principle. I get much more done when I have a deadline or cut-off point. So I do sometimes limit the time I spend on tasks. For example, if I have 30 minutes before an appointment I choose a task I can finish in that time. If it’s 10 minutes it might be an admin task - sorting emails into folders for example.
After a task is completed I take a short break - just five minutes normally. Taking a break gives you an opportunity to think about what you’ve been doing and enables you to sit down to the next task with a fresh pair of eyes and a clear head. I’ll take a brisk walk round the house, go upstairs and change the sheets, post a couple of letters - anything really as long as it’s different to what I’ve been doing previously. It has a secondary purpose as well: I hate having to do chores, but this way I do them without noticing.
But what happens when you’re on a roll, head down, focused on a task and it’s….
3. The friend on the end of the phone inviting you out for a coffee
Oh boy, this is the one I struggle with most. The thing is, when you’re in an office people wouldn’t dream of ringing you in working hours. But now you’re working from home you’re fair game.
There’s another dimension to this. If you tell people you don’t work normal working hours then you might well be ‘free’ when they ring. And I’m a sociable person so there’s nothing I love more than chatting over coffee. So this is a complex one.
I find I’m always ‘on call’ these days. Even if I’m taking a break in the afternoon because I’m not feeling quite so productive, I could still take a call from a client which needs an immediate response. Recently an opportunity came up to do a consultation at short notice. The telephone call came through on a ‘quiet’ morning, just after I’d agreed to meet a friend for coffee. Suddenly I’d turned my day into a race against time, and, due to a prior commitment at lunch, a logistical nightmare too. The thing is, in this world, I don’t really know when I might be free, but what I do know is that I can’t afford to miss an opportunity.
Sometimes the answer is simply to say no. Sometimes it’s yes, love to, but not now. And sometimes you need a bit longer to make the right decision, in which case it makes sense to call someone back. That allows time to look at what you’ve got to achieve in the next few hours and see if any of it can be planned around a quick coffee.
Also, why not try to plan ahead? If there are people you want to see regularly, make an appointment with them. Most people need to work and will appreciate the opportunity to find a time that’s convenient for both of you. If I think I might be disturbing someone I email or text rather than call, so they don’t have to answer me immediately.
Dealing with distractions isn’t easy, and you’ll need to work at it as you go along. But it is a critical part of learning to work effectively and happily from home. Tomorrow we’ll look at how you can use your home as an effective environment to work from, and how getting the right set-up can help you minimise distractions further.
