How can you stay focused on work at home?

[BillEssley]

I can do as a freelancer sometime but I couldn't focus on work when working at home, somethings are attracting me like facebook, games, film online, etc?
I'm interested if you guys share your thoughts or what are your tips to stay focused on work at home?

 

[PTTed]

Great question Bill! Everyone who works from home at all has to battle this to some extent.

Here are some things I did:
1) I closed my personal Facebook account – Yes I really did.
2) For years I had an addiction to certain games (like Ages of Empires and Warcraft) – I uninstalled them from my primary computer and refuse to let myself reinstall them. If they arent installed, it is too much of a pain to reinstall them to play. It is much easier to talk yourself out of installing them than it is to talk yourself out of playing them. Then destroy whatever media you have them on so that you can never reinstall them.
3) Took a hiatus from all social media networks. Just quit using them entirely. They are more of a time suck than anything else. They are not as useful as they are made out to be. Even if you try to use them for learning purposes, you will end up wasting more time on them than you will gain back in education.


Those are three of the things I did to stop major time wasting problems I had.

I also began a new regimen of personal development. If you spend more time focusing on your long term goals and aspirations, then you will spend less time screwing off. You have to remind yourself about what your true priorities are in life. And none of them include social media or playing games.

That is what I did and it has helped me tremendously.

I think as you grow older, this sort of problem also starts to go away naturally.

 

[ypson]

What works for some people is to set a specific amount of time for these distractions and to follow a work first play when the work for the day is completed principle.
It works as a reward system on top of your other motivators as well since you know that if everything is done, you get to do stuff.

 

[professorrosado]

I think everyone may find a suitable method that works for themselves. Myself, I incorporate distractions into my work life. But for me, I don't need to stay motivated in my work because it is my life. Distractions help me to rest my eyes and brain from my work.

So in my case, I need and use distractions to find balance and reduce eye strain, etc.

Also, when I have to dedicate my computer to a single task and I have to baby sit the process, then I put netflix on or find a topic on youtube to absorb, etc.

 

[smallbudgethosting]

The thing is when working at home, you need to have a balance, of work, play, and relaxation. Most people seem to think that you need to sit there for 8 to 12 hours just coding or web designing or doing graphics work. This leads to mental exhaustion and burn out. If you tend to go at it this hard you end up not wanting to actually do what you love doing.

You need to have a balance of you finish a section of your project you take a break, listen to music, and then go back to work. If you have a graphics project to do, work on it, get it done, then take a break then come back at it.

Back in the day there was a study about learning saying that those courses where you have a 3 hour long class you end up learning less than if you had taken 30 minute breaks during that time. One hour classes with a break in the middle were optimal.

Now there are companies that are changing the cubical style of thinking and encouraging breaks and going on social media to distract from the stresses of programming and what not. Some are going as far as having mid day nurf gun fights and having fun at work.. (shocking idea I know)

Get up from the computer when you take a break.. don't grab your phone, tablet, or even a book.. got a pet go play with it, since you are at home.. go find something fun to do.

Mental simulation outside of working at home is something that many people tend to forget.