Distraction will be the death of me.  Distraction is the path to working for someone else in a job I hate for pitiful money.  If I’m going to work for beans I prefer to work for myself.

I’ve been working at home for month now and my biggest challenge so far has been managing distraction and focussing on getting down to work.  My key distractions consist mainly of moving my eyes ever so slightly upwards to my toolbar in Google Chrome.  Have I had any new emails (aka orders), does anyone ‘like’ what I’m doing on Facebook, has anyone Tweeted anything of interest in the past 3 minutes since I last looked? And the simple answer of course is NO THEY HAVE NOT!

See! Just did it right then, in this order – email, shop order section, Facebook, Twitter.  That took two minutes out of my day, and more in terms of distraction and taking my focus off writing this post.

Other distractions include, in no particular order, making phone calls, multitasking, thinking about lunch, cleaning my office, taking cute photos of Dave the cat and posting them on Facebook.  It has to stop.  Otherwise, as previously discussed, I’m dead meat and unemployed.

Image courtesy of friskychile.blogspot.com

So over the weeks I’ve developed a structure to my day and am roughly sticking to it. I do my best thinking and writing in the morning so I’ll write an article, blog post or feature then, making sure I take a break for a stretch every hour.  Then I go swimming at midday, eat lunch then start processing orders.  After I’m back from the post office (where at this time of year I can feel the daggers of the snaking line of customers in my back as they wrestle with large boxes destined for relatives or forty identical Christmas cards they’ve just discovered are too large for an ordinary stamp) I get on with the stuff that requires less brain power; studying my web analytics, working out figures, planning a customer survey, things like that.

See, just checked all three again!

It’s working out what you achieve best at which time of day and sticking to it.  I’ve realised I exercise best at lunchtime.  So I do a 10 hour work day with a two hour break at lunchtime for swimming and lunch (not at the same time obviously, no one likes a soggy sandwich)  So here are my top tips for minimising the distraction, which gives you a dopamine rush every time you do it, and getting on with building your business.

• Work out which structure works for you and prioritise your day based on that.
• Don’t multi-task.  I know woman are better at it than men but in this instance it just wastes time
• Write a to-do list for the day and tick them off as you progress, you’ll feel good
• Break large jobs, such as a product launch, into small goals then tasks and get with them one by one
• Exercise
• Eat properly
• Only check emails three or four times a day otherwise you get bogged down in responding and get nothing done
• Ditto for Facebook and Twitter
• Outsource – if you can afford it.  I don’t do website design, my books, or SEO anymore.  I’m bad at all three.  If you can pay for any of the stuff you’re not great at do it.  You’ll save a fortune in both time and money.

This post two twenty minutes to write, roughly speaking, and in that time I checked email, Facebook and Twitter three times.  That’s shameful and a complete waste of time. From now on I’m not having them on permanently.  They will be checked along with meals and snacks and that’s it.  Watch this space!

Merry Christmas, lovely people, may you days be happy and bright.