Work at Home Moms
So, you’re stuck working from home? There are now two ways this can go.
One option is that you work like so many other people who are confined to home offices. But, unfortunately, that means you’ll spend a massive chunk of your day procrastinating before you get anything is done, which will result in work spilling over into your evening.
You’ll go to bed with work still on your plate, feeling stressed and behind. Meaning you’ll wake up the next day and start work in your pajamas.
Without someone looking over your shoulder or structuring your day, it’s all too easy to fall into bad habits. You make yourself that morning cup of coffee. You check your emails. You read Facebook… you neglect to shave! It feels like liberation at first, and it’s a great feeling not having to rush out of the door.
But as a result, you end up with no structure. You spend all of your day “half-working,” and you spend all your time cooped up in one room. Your work-life bleeds into your downtime, and you end up falling behind in all kinds of aspects of your productivity AND your personal life.
So what is the other option?
The other option is that you grasp this opportunity with both hands: that you apply a little strategy and discipline. But, most importantly: you gain the correct mindset that will help you tackle this unique challenge in the best way possible.
And what does all that mean?
It means that you can now finish your day’s work in less time. Because let’s face it: most of us wasted hours in the office on meetings and chatting around the water cooler!
It means that you have no commute either, meaning that you probably just gained 2–4 hours of extra time every day.
You’ll work in a tidy and organized office that is explicitly designed to help you feel productive at work, and then you’ll adequately relax and unwind in the evenings with the people and things you love.
The best part is that you can start applying a little “lifestyle design.” That means working in the way you want to work: working the hours that you like, and even from different locations. Why not do extra work throughout the week so that you can have Fridays off?
(Which also means you can now go to the bank and hairdresser when it’s much quieter.)
Why not forego working in your home office (if possible) and instead go and work in a café somewhere? Or even while looking at a beautiful local landmark?
Why not work from your garden if going outside is not an option?
All this is possible when you work from home, whether freelancing or employed by a large organization. All you need is to approach this in the right way and with the right state of mind. You’ll be more productive, you’ll earn more, and you’ll have more spare time to work on your self-development, your hobbies, and the things that matter to you. It’s all about getting into the right mindset, learning to be productive when there is nobody to pile the pressure on, and doing what you can to stay on task.
Setting Yourself Rewards:
Coming to our rescue is a tip from the book “How to Save an Hour A Day” by Michael Heppell. He says that you should set yourself smaller goals within a project, and then reward yourself for completing those.
So for instance, if you normally start your day by going to make yourself a coffee, then browsing through emails, and having a cheeky look at Facebook… that needs to change.
It is about half nine and you’ve so far achieved nothing! That’s a deflating way to start your day.
WORK FROM HOME PRODUCTIVITY
So instead: sit down, eat the frog, and set out to write that massive project, or to complete the big data entry task… but then set yourself a target for the first chunk of work (perhaps N number of data rows). At this point, you can go and have your coffee. And then when you complete another chunk of work that you set as a goal, you can go and answer those emails.
NOW by 9.30, you have already completed a huge chunk of your work and you’ll feel far better about yourself as a result. What’s more, is that you’ll often push yourself even further: you finish those 20 rows of data and then you think… why not do ten more before the coffee?
And this also means you’ll drink less coffee. If you’re anything like me… then that’s no bad thing!
But what if you don’t have this luxury? What if you didn’t get a chance to start the work the day before?
Staring at a blank screen is hard work for anyone. However, writers’ block is NOT something that only affects writers! So the other big piece of advice I can give you is this: start coding. Just start writing. Just start designing.
Even if the quality of the work appears to be poor. Even if you feel slow and sluggish and aren’t sure if what you are producing is high quality…
Just get working!
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Good Luck…
