While working at home can be very freeing, it also has its own set of challenges. One of the biggest for me is staying focused. Because I am the kind of person who hates to say no to anybody, I often find myself interrupted in my work to do things for others. If I am on a task that I consider particularly boring or hard to understand, I also find myself procrastinating.
I am not a natually high-energy Type-A personality, so I need to train myself to stay focused. One way I do this is by using a timer. I set a digital egg timer (I use a timer from Apimac for my Mac, but there are several free timers available for Windows as well) for a period of time that will be easy to concentrate: if it is a particularly tough day, this might be only ten or fifteen minutes. For this time, I work, with no distractions, no matter what. When the timer sounds, I reward myself with a very short break.
I use the timer process over and over, and write on a scratch pad how many times I have done it, so I know how much work I have put in. Then I gradually increase the time on the timer, so that I am working for 50 minutes and relaxing for ten, or working for two hours, relaxing for fifteen.
For those type-A personalities, the problem can go the other way: working too hard, without taking breaks. The timer can help with this, too. Remember, an office worker in a regular cubicle farm does not accomplish eight hours of work in an eight-hour day. There are coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, chats with colleagues, phone calls, planning, organization, etc. Working from home eliminates a lot of this, but you should not expect yourself to work straight for several hours without relaxing, or you will burn out.
Keeping track of my work with a timer helps me keep the balance between work and rest, when I have no one looking over my shoulder.
Monday, November 23, 2009 at 04:46PM 