What’s That? How to Minimize Distractions
Interruptions generally occur when people take you away from your work — by walking into your office and demanding your immediate attention, or calling you on the phone and talking your ear off for half an hour.
Distractions are often more subtle. For home-based businesspeople, common distractions include the Internet, a favorite soap opera broadcast for an hour every day, or a refrigerator down the hall that’s full of goodies.
Here are some ways for dealing with distractions:
- Remove the sources of distraction. Is that television on your file cabinet begging you to turn it on? Is that social media platform seducing you to check out a few more profiles and write a few more comments? Are you spending more time looking through your magazines than producing billable work?
One of the best ways to avoid distractions is to remove their source. Turn them off, throw them out, or move them to another room.
- Avoid procrastination. Putting work off until later, sometimes much later, is a powerful enemy of the home-based businessperson. And it’s an enemy that you must defeat if you hope to be successful in the long run.
- Reward yourself for achieving your goals. Don’t forget to give yourself some sort of reward for accomplishing a significant task or achieving an important milestone. Not only will rewards make you feel better, but they’ll also motivate you to stay focused on your work while tuning out distractions.
- Schedule (and take!) regular breaks. Do you find yourself fidgeting or unable to stay focused on your work? Take a short break from your work. Forward your calls to voice mail, and get out of your office.
Don’t leave taking breaks to chance; schedule regular breaks into your daily work plan.
You can control the effect of distractions on you and your business by taking action to remove their source and by providing sufficient structure and motivation in your work.
