One of the biggest issues people run into with being an entrepreneur is that they are not good at time management. Setting your own hours can be a great perk of starting your own company, but without discipline, you will find yourself feeling like a hamster on a wheel; moving a lot and going nowhere. You have to work your business just like you would work a job. You must have set hours and give yourself deadlines. It is extremely easy to get distracted when you are working from home: chores need to be done, you haven’t caught up on your favorite show that’s been on your DVR for weeks, Netflix just released a new series that you’re excited to watch, Facebook notifications keep popping up on your phone. Here are a couple of ideas to eliminate distractions and boost your productivity.
- Set up specific break times. There are some people who can just sit down, focus and knock out a project in a few hours (I envy these people). For the rest of us, we need break
- Break times can be at specific times during the day, you may need to schedule a break every 2 hours.
- Break times can also be set around the tasks you have to do for the day, once you finish a specific number of tasks then you can take a break.
- Have a home office
- Designate an area of your home solely for working. Only use that space for working and do not work from any other area in the house
- Create an actual office environment. Multiple monitors if you need them, your printer, a comfortable chair, office supplies etc… You should never have to leave your home office to do things related to work.
- Ensure that others in the home understand that is your personal are. No one should use that space to check their Instagram account.
- Having a home office allows you to claim a home office tax deduction as long as you use the space exclusively for business.
- Make a daily or weekly to-do list
- Having a list written out in from of you makes it easier to remember everything that needs to be done and to stay focused on those tasks.
- Some may prefer using something like a dry erase board. Either way it is something that will allow you to stay focused on tasks at hand.
