How To Avoid Distractions While Working From Home by @DeniseDamijo

How To Avoid Distractions While Working From Home

by Denise Damijo | Featured Contributor 

The strangest things can occur when you are working from home. You are in a constant battle with distractions. They lurk , they hide, and they pop out at the most inconvenient time to steal you away from your mission of the day. You may have thought that when you were working a regular 9-5 you didn’t have the problems that you are now facing, so why is it that you have so many distractions at home and it’s getting harder and harder to not succumb to them everyday?

When you are at home, you are in your safe haven, your comfort zone, your place to rest, relax, and rejuvenate. When you have decided to make your home your work place it interrupts your state of understanding of what your home is. Is it a work place or is it a safe haven and resting place? It can harmoniously be both if you cut out the distractions.

The distractions that comes with working from home can come in the form of the phone ringing, paying bills not associated with your business, or even the big time distractor, food. Being that we have a kitchen full of all of our favorite foods to eat, that usually becomes the biggest and peskiest distraction of them all. Social media isn’t far behind especially if part of your business relies on social media for marketing and connecting with your potential clients and past customers. It’s so easy to be posting something for your business or checking on an ad and get a notification that one of your best friends just got engaged without telling you first.

So how do you keep yourself from eating and drinking all of the groceries that you recently bought as well as unexpectedly spending an hour on your personal Facebook?

  1. Set up a monthly goal to be the target that you want to achieve.
  2. Set mini milestones weekly and daily for you to use as your GPS to navigate to your desired target.
  3. Always leave a little wiggle room because less face it, life happens. Don’t leave to much wiggle room for you to set yourself up to fail, just leave enough to give yourself a little bit of grace if things don’t go exactly how you planned.
  4. Always create your very own quality you time. In this time, do what you want to do personally. This time is strictly personal. That also includes no paying bills. This time can be spent journaling, reading, meditating, relaxing, or even on your personal social media. Whatever you decide to do in this time, make sure that you enjoy it and use it just for you.
  5. There is a lot of convenience in being able to work from home. If paying personal bills is one of them, give yourself an allowed time to pay your personal bills each week.
  6. If the phone rings and it is not an emergency or someone that you really need to talk to at that moment, let the call go to voicemail and return all of your calls at a designated time each day. Make sure that you say in your voicemail or let people that are most important to you know that you will not be answering or returning any calls until the time you set and also let them know what to do if there is an emergency and they need to contact you right away.
  7. Social media comes with a lot of bells and whistles, literally. Notifications of a post you were following or from a person you are following can be very distractive. Set a goal everyday to tend to your business social media as well as your personal. It doesn’t have to be done at the same time but if you would like to do your business social media first and then tend to your personal, make sure that you are allowing 5 no more than 10 minutes during your working hours to tend to your personal social media. Also make sure that you create no more than one or two breaks to utilize the allotted personal social media time within your working hours. This can be at the very beginning of the day and in the middle of the day.
  8. Food comes with some big distractions especially when you are not alone at home. It is bad enough trying to keep yourself away from the cupcakes or your favorite bowl of cereal, but when their are people home with you that seems like they want to make the best smelling breakfast ever, it can definitely be your worst distraction. How to conquer and overcome it is to make your snacks either the night before or right before you start your day. Carrots, celery sticks, and apples are good healthy snacks. You can also keep some nuts that you enjoy eating close to your work area. Make sure that a few bottles of water are close so that you won’t have to get up to get some. Also make sure that you break for lunch and completely leave your work area to focus on your lunch. This will help you get refreshed and rejuvenated so you can effectively handle the rest of your day.

Being distracted while working can kill your creativity, productivity, and make you to miss your target goal for the day, week, and month. Staying on target is going to take some discipline and the above strategies and if done consistently, you can be rid of the majority of your distractions quickly.

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denise damijoHello, I’m the Founder & CEO of Denise Damijo International, LLC. where I Run a success business while having a husband and 5 children (3 being under the age of 2) I definitely have earned the title of the Momapreneur’s Business and Lifestyle Strategist.

I have been featured in places like the Huffington Post, Addicted2Success, Women On Business, Elite Daily, Become The Lion, Leaders In Heels, and more. I’m a published author, and the creator of the Rise UP And Win Challenge.

I love helping momapreneurs get clear, get intentional, and get paid by helping them strategize great content, marketing, and sales plans.

Connect with me on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter and denisedamijo.com/.

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2 Replies to “How To Avoid Distractions While Working From Home by @DeniseDamijo”

  1. Cori Ramos

    Hi Denise,

    Great tips! The one I struggle with the most is #8. To get to the bathroom I have to pass the kitchen and everytime I pass the kitchen I pick up a snack. I like the idea you suggested about preparing snacks the night before – that’s definitely doable.

    Another distraction is the quiet time to work. My grandsons live with us now and well, you can’t make a video or jump on a call with a 2 year old acting like the Hulk. 🙂

    Thanks for sharing these with us. Already passed it along. Have a great day and weekend!

    Cori

    1. Denise Damijo[ Post Author ]

      Hello Cori,

      If you have to pass the kitchen while at work, it is a MAJOR distraction and it could be bad for your health. I hope that preparing your snacks ahead of time helps to cut down on the distractions for you.

      I know all too well about the loud pitter patter of little feet running around. I have a total of 5 and 3 of them are under the age of 2. Let’s just say it is never a dull moment and rarely a quite one in my house. What has helped me is that I always try scheduling my videos and if possible my calls around my 21 month old’s nap. My twins usually also take their naps around the same time so I’m able to get about a 2 hour time frame of getting my videos and client calls done. If it is a bill or something that doesn’t really have to do with business, I let them here the sounds of the young ones.

      Another thing that I also do is schedule interviews and things that can be done later in the day, after 5pm preferably 6:30pm and beyond. My teenagers are home and settled and my husband usually gets home around that time. That way they can take my 3 under 2 for a walk or keep them busy and quite in another room.

      I really enjoyed your comment and I hope that this information can help you. I always love getting to know my readers and what is the real life situations that they are faced with. Take care and enjoy the rest of your weekend as well!!

      Denise

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