5 Tips for Getting Work Done with Distractions

Now that a lot of us find ourselves working from home, we can sometimes find it hard to focus on our duties. We’ve come up with a few ideas to help you become distraction free, and get some work done.

1. Create a dedicated home office space. If you don’t have room in your home for your own dedicated room, that’s fine. Find a corner or a lesser used room and make a little office nook for yourself. Clear it free of anything that doesn’t have to do with work, so you don’t distract yourself by looking at non-work related items. And make sure the space can be quiet while you work, or if you like music to help you through your day, then add a little mini speaker to your work space. And it’s preferable to have a door, so you can shut out any other distractions from the house.
2. Manage your time to suit your productivity. For example, if you are more of a morning person, then frontload your day with your must-accomplish tasks, and move your meetings or phone calls to the afternoon. Create your schedule that is best suited to your personality, and you’ll find you become less distracted.
3. The easiest on this list is to block out your distractions. To keep focused, block out anything that would distract you. Constantly checking your email? Find yourself slipping to look at social network sites? Or looking at your text messages? The easiest way to get rid of those distractions is to remove them from your view. Close those applications on your computer and silence your phone while you’re in the middle of a task that needs accomplished.  If you remove distractions from your reach, then you can focus on getting things done.
4. Take a break. Make sure you take time out of your day to relax, have a cup of coffee or tea, and think about whatever could be a distraction. Whether it’s laundry that needs done, scheduling a doctor’s appointment, or taking out the trash. Take that break time to accomplish small things or just stare off into space if you’d like. Whatever it is, let your brain have time to process all your additional thoughts that may distract you throughout the day. Think of it as a scheduled distraction time, then you won’t have things popping into your head all day long. 
5. Use one form of communication for your work team. Choose an appropriate messaging service that works for your team to use as your main form of communication. Instead of being distracted by constantly checking email or answering your phone, you can easily have a messenger chat box to utilize when you need to communicate. And remember the thing about blocking distractions? Use this tool, to let everyone know you are unreachable for a certain amount of time while you’re focusing on a certain project or task, and you’ll check messages when you are finished. Avoid messaging others if the matter isn’t urgent, reserve that for emails. People tend to respond to messages immediately, so if it’s not urgent, don’t distract them with a message.​

By utilizing some of these ideas, you will find yourself being more productive throughout your day. And the more focused, and therefore quicker to finish your tasks, then you can check out of your day earlier and enjoy a stress-free evening. And who doesn’t love that?

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