In November, guest blogger Alvia Lopez talked about warding off and curing blogger’s block (check out the post here: Tips To Fight Blogger Block). Sometimes, though, blogger’s block isn’t about vision, audience, or the need to reinvent your blog. In fact, most days, it’s just about distractions.Arguably, this isn’t blogger’s block at all but just that: distractions. These include kids, roommates, the phone that won’t stop ringing, and the cat that keeps meowing at you for the expensive wet food instead of that dried nonsense you scoop out of a bag. Your friend assumes that because you doing some work from home, you won’t mind working until 5 AM and spending the afternoon helping him deal with his infestation problem instead of working.You sleep in the next day until noon but figure, what’s another three hours? and end up getting absolutely nothing accomplished for your blog the entire week.
Still, whether it’s distractions or blogger’s block, it’s important to have as many things working for rather than against you when working from the comfort of your own home.
The key to successfully working at home? Don’t get too comfortable. It’s easy to imagine yourself working from the couch in pajamas and pink bunny slippers, but it doesn’t work this way. When you work from the couch in your pajamas in front of the TV, you spend hours watching Gordon Ramsey screaming at people instead of blogging, you spill your coffee and waste time looking for your household cleaners instead of writing advertisements, and you fall asleep at 3 o’ clock in your post-lunch funk.
Prep yourself for productivity and success by pretending that you work a real job from a real office.
6 Ways To Stay Focused
1. Take a shower, brush your teeth, and wear deodorant. You wouldn’t go to the office smelling like a subway, would you? Feeling clean is refreshing and will make you feel less like falling asleep on the job.
2. Wear clothes that you could imagine wearing to lunch with an old friend to a nice café. You don’t need to wear heels or cufflinks—just something that’s comfortable when you sit up but not so comfortable that it makes you want to lie down.
3. Work at a desk. If you don’t have one, get one, and don’t work at the kitchen table. That’s for eating; a desk is for working. Find a desk and a chair with lumbar support on Craigslist or a used furniture store. If you don’t work from an office with a desk, how are you supposed to pretend that you’re doing important things that are getting you a paycheck?
4. Don’t accept calls from friends or relatives unless it’s during your lunch hour or after your designated work hours. You wouldn’t accept them if you were working from behind a desk under your boss’s nose.
5. Take fifteen minute breaks after two hours of work. Don’t spend them at your desk; take the dog for a walk, do some yoga, or clean the kitchen. Doing something on your feet will refresh you from the eye strain and sitting of desktop work.
6. Keep a tally of what you’ve accomplished by day’s end. Before leaving your desk for the day, write down your goals for the next day. Writing down a to-do list will remind you that you have to wake up when the alarm goes off the next morning instead of hitting snooze thirty times.
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