How to Avoid Distractions When Working at Home!

I have been working at home and from home for many years now, with many different hats on. I studied just about everything I could think of that would in some way enable me to have a shot at working from home. I’m not quite sure why I was so set on it but I just recall that it was my ultimate goal from a very young age and that I never enjoyed working for someone else and on someone else’s schedule. Yuk!

By the time I officially joined the network marketing industry some 5 years ago I had already had a lot of experience in working at home in a varied range of careers such as; party plan direct sales, and as a professional beautician so I could work from home around my baby daughter.

Well it didn’t take long for me to get totally fed up with waxing ladies’ hairy parts and squeezing commodones (posh word for blackheads!) out of recalcitrant nostrils, whilst enveloped with whooshing steam, in my spare bedroom.

Then I progressed to home study to be a fully qualified book-keeper (partly to get a promotion at work, or rank advance as I would think of it now, and partly because I was still on the quest for independence. I also studied creative writing (from home of course!) in my mate
ity leave to fulfil my dream of being a writer.

My second baby came along and I got really brave and undertook a BA in English Literature with the University of London. And yes you guessed it … I did that as an exte
al student as well.

Now that was really tough at times, but the whole point of this rather garbled potted history is to demonstrate that I have done a ton of things from home, all directed in some way with a view to making money, whilst bringing up a young family and often running a business or attending a job alongside.

What I have learned along the way is how to make best use of my time and how to produce results whilst surrounded by many elements at home such as babies, children, husband, guests, TV, noisy neighbours, window cleaners, children’s friends, unsolicited salespeople and surveyors at the door, phone calls from family and friends wanting to chat because ’she’s at home’ and the list goes on….

So how am I raising two daughters, whilst being there for all those special highlights in their life at home and at school, doing homework with them as and when needed, ferrying them around for this and that, and still running a business from home, working on many other projects, and keeping my sanity?

Well I started off about 12 years ago ducking and diving at home from those regular distractions we grew up with such as, the phone ringing rather a lot and Aunty Mabel wanting to tell me all about her ingrowing toe nail.

Then we had things like babies crying and needing to be fed every 3 hours, then they progressed to demanding children who simply wanted to eat a lot, and who were much fussier about what I gave them than when they were babies!

Then there were those boring jobs to juggle, and dinner needing to be made, housework, endless laundry, etc. etc.

Welcome to 2009! Now we have all of those things still going on (fortunately not quite so hectic for me any more as my hungry daughters have grown a lot and are able to feed themselves in between meals)

What we are up against now is the incessant demands of technology. We have regular phones, mobile phones, skype phones and I’m sure lots of other phones ringing. Often at the same time!

There is email to be checked and answered, and of course we still need to fish through the snail mail and deal with that also. There are blogs to be updated and not to forget online banking which runs itself but can get a little out of hand if you don’t keep an eye on your spending!

If you are new to working at home, or have been at it for some time but are challenged by some of the aforementioned and would like to be more productive in the hours available to you then this blog is for you.

Plan your days the night before and have that list in front of you every morning. Number the list in order of importance. Allocate a portion of time to each activity and don’t allow anything to distract you. (Unless you have a baby or small child of course, and then you will need to trade favours with friends for baby sitting or pay a childminder, and become very good at bargaining for quiet time with your children as they grow) By accomplishing even 1 or 2 profit making activities from your list on a daily basis you will be way ahead of the masses.

Put a start and end time in your diary for appointments and only work to appointments. Get off the phone as quickly as you can. Start the call by telling the caller that you have i.e. 10 minutes. If you also have an Aunty Mabel calling you then you will need to become a bit ruthless with your time. Either arrange to call her back at a time that suits YOU, or deal with the crisis and then say that your next appointment is calling on your other phone and you must go now.

Remember that we teach people how to treat us and that includes how they respect our time. This goes for your team members, and your family and friends.

For online networking have a ‘Power Hour’ where you have your networking groups, Skype etc. applications open and actively network to meet new people and add to your candidate list.
Now this is a biggie and this is the most difficult. (At least for me) Don’t leave Skype running 24/7, email notifications on your blackberry pinging, with incoming calls, and outlook being checked every hour for new emails. If you are available and disturbed constantly you will find it very difficult to complete the tasks on your list. You may also find that you develop the attention span of a gnat!! Stop multi multi-tasking and focus on one thing at a time.

Let your team know when you are available for 3 way calls and coaching sessions. That way everyone can plan their schedules efficiently and accomplish much more with their time.
Most Network Marketers have other jobs, businesses, interests that require their time as well as their network marketing business. Make sure to concentrate on each part of your life and give it the full attention it deserves.

All of these wonderful technologies that we have at our fingertips can be used to improve our productivity, but if you allow them to disturb you constantly you may just find that your schedule is being run by other people!

As Jim Rohn says ‘wherever you are, be there.’