For most remote workers, staying focused can be a challenge. Even so, to become successful in your freelance job, you must master the different tricks for dealing with the attention-stealing forces at home.
Those tricks are exactly what you will learn in this post. Our work-from-home tips will help you gain more control over your mind. We will also teach you how to enforce a daily regimen for maximum productivity.
Why Is it Hard to Focus when Working from Home?
A recent Joblist survey answers the question. The study examined how 1,000 remote employees are maintaining a balance between home activities and daily work. While many admit to enjoying certain benefits in terms of lifestyle flexibility and more, there were negative claims, including the following:
1. Gaming Addiction
One in ten revealed the struggle of overcoming video gaming addictions during work hours. This may also be one of the reasons why the gaming industry is expected to grow from $180.1 billion to over $200 billion by 2023.
2. Loneliness and Health
Between 21-24% of the respondents had difficulties dealing with loneliness, weight gain, and mental health deterioration.
3. House Chores
Meanwhile, one in five remote workers said they do laundry and similar home errands intermittently while working.
4. Others
TV, social media chat rooms, and online movie streaming were also major sources of distraction. Interestingly, the temptation to indulge in them is ever-present, meaning you have to deal with them at once.
What’s the Big Deal About Being Distracted?
University of California’s study by Gloria Mark (et al) showed that it takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds on average to regroup the mind before resuming a task after an interruption. Let’s do the math. If you get distracted only three times a day, you will always fall one hour behind schedule.
Now, imagine having to read a document over and over again without being able to make sense of its content because of divided attention? When you are unable to focus on your core tasks and responsibilities, you will become frustrated. Your stress levels will increase and you’ll possibly face overwhelming pressures from superiors or clients due to missed deadlines. Besides, your productivity, personal wellbeing, and relationships may be affected too.
Staying focused on work is challenging, and it takes time and practice. Jump to the next section to learn how you can concentrate on your most important duties.
What Are Some Tips to Stay Focused When Working from Home?
1. Take One Task at a Time
Multitasking makes you half-focused and could be a reason your daily output has been low. It’s more challenging if the nature of your job requires you to shuttle to and fro across several platforms, apps, devices, and so on. It will help if you select a particular task and give your whole attention to it regardless of your daily workload.
If you try to accomplish everything at once, you might end the day achieving far less than you should. Meanwhile, focusing on the task at hand will help you complete it quickly, allowing you to move on to the next one.
2. Be Strategic with Unavoidable Distractions
As you work from home, it is impossible to avoid getting carried away with other things. That said, your objective is to minimize the frequency and duration of distractions. Prolonged distractions have longer effects and require more recovery time to shake off. It’s in your best interest to learn how to discipline yourself to stay with a job until you have completed it.
Nowadays, mobile phone notifications are the most common attention thieves, and they can easily toss your mind to something else. Turning them off or muting the irrelevant ones can help you sustain focus on your most important tasks.
3. Have a Time Management Plan
Time management is the greatest issue when it comes to staying focused as a remote worker. The truth is, some moments of interruptions are necessary and might be as beneficial as the work itself. For example, momentary breaks to eat, freshen up, interact with family, or briefly connect with your old pals may help you gain the emotional strength to be more focused on work. However, finding the exact balance between work and these other things may be challenging.
On this note, we recommend using a reliable time management tool. Apps like this allow you to put all your daily activities in one place and maintain them more effectively. The alert system in the time tracker will ensure you get to manage your other engagements better. However, there is more. The tool’s ability to monitor what sites and apps you spend most of your time on helps you deal with your distractions head-on.
4. Set Up a Personal Workspace
As a remote staff, your home is your new office. So, a private workstation at home is a good way to guard your mind against non-work-associated interruptions. But ensure your residential office is a place dedicated to work alone.
This means that music, unexpected visitors, a PlayStation video game, and other forms of distraction should be limited in the best way possible.
5. Work Out Regularly
Physical fitness positively affects your overall health. In a BMC Public Health research, three health and fitness experts sought to provide evidence that any form of exercise is beneficial for human memory. In the end, they were able to demonstrate how higher levels of physical fitness are beneficial for cognitive function in humans.
A 20-minute walk, a little race around the yard, or even a light combination of squats and push-ups can improve your mental alertness. As you start feeling lighter, your thoughts will become clear, and you’ll end up more productive for the rest of the day.
6. Determine Your Peak Times
Peak times vary for different people. So, you should figure out when you feel more motivated to work. If it’s in the morning, try finishing up your tasks around the early hours of the day. Similarly, do the same if your peak times come at nighttime. During these mentally supercharged moments, it’s less likely that your focus will get shifted by anything.
Conclusion
Maintaining one’s focus while working remotely might seem almost impossible. Yet, for a successful work-life, you must eliminate distractions. In this post, we’ve shared different ways that you can achieve that.