When you work at home, it’s easy to get distracted. After all, there’s no boss watching your every move, so why not take a few minutes off to grab a snack or do the laundry? In fact, why not make a couple of phone calls or IM with friends while you’re at it? Taken singly, one of these distractions doesn’t make too much of a dent in your working day. It’s when they all add up that it starts to matter.  If you spend:

• 10 minutes sorting out the laundry
• 20 minutes chatting with friends on IM
• 20 minutes chatting with friends on the phone
• 10 minutes fixing the most scrumptious snack

then you have already wasted an hour of your work day. Your distractions may be different, but the principle is the same.

It’s hard, because part of the reason you work from home is to enjoy that flexibility. You should be able to fit your working life around your home responsibilities and your social needs. But if you’ve ever answered the phone and, by doing so, lost that elusive phrase that would have made the perfect end to your article, then you will realise why you need to take a firm hand with friends and family when it comes to your work.

If you worked in an office away from home, no one would be able to:

• keep you chatting on the phone for ages
• pop upstairs for a chat
• ask you to phone the plumber during working hours
• ask you to stop at a crucial moment

It’s true that all of these tasks have to be done, but there’s a better way than breaking up your work day. My suggestion is to keep your best writing time for writing, and split up those essential non writing tasks across the rest of the day.

Since you can’t sit at the computer all day without a break for health reasons, use those breaks to do those tasks. If I have to do laundry, I can pop it in before I start work, and hang it out after I’ve done a two hour stint or have finished a particular job. I can pick it up again after another two hour stint.

I can make phone calls either before I start work, or during a coffee break or lunch break, as long as I keep them short. The trick is to make sure that you leave yourself enough time to do the work that you have allocated for that day. Only you can decide how much time is needed, and only you can politely ask friends and family not to disturb you when you are working. Try it; you might be surprised at the results.

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Tags | freelance writing, get paid to write, writing